Given the current "overseas" opinion of Americans, I do think it might have been a nice gesture on Hamm's part to offer to co-gold.

Oh well. Competitive we are.

I don't think it's within his purview to offer "co-gold." That's something that the US and South Korean Olympic committees are discussing, but the IOC has already dismissed the suggestion as inappropriate.

And I don't think it's just a matter of being competitive. It's a matter of being fair. If you're going to award the extra points to the Korean for one mistake, then you ought to remove the extra points he was given for the other. End result? He not only doesn't get the gold, he doesn't get any medal at all.

You start down that path and where do you stop?

You said exactly what I've been thinking the past few days on this issue. Even down to the boycott reprieve for The Today Show, which is truly awful. I find that I flip back and forth between it and Fox & Friends.

I feel for Hamm and all the ahtletes who have to endure the ineptitude of biased judges and the politics behind world sports competitions.

Please join me in my "just about to start any minute now" campaign to
a) start a 24/7 Lifetime Gymnastics Channel
b) ban gymnastics (and possibly diving since they have judges too) from the damn Olympics forever.

That way, all the fraus get to see all the gymnasts they need, and I don't have to listen to the squeaky things talk about their motivations and support staff back home when we could be watching
1) softball
2) volleyball
3) sailing
4) musketry
5) caber-tossing
or even bloody cycling.

Right after I get that done, I'm going to lobby for a Champions Gala, wherein Jennie Finch blows fastballs by every Olympic participant, and then Logan Tom spikes a volleyball into their preferred body part. Rulon Gardner pulls them off the stage, one by one.

Wow, nothing could make me watch the Today Show again after Couric yakked her way through Princess Diana's funeral.

Anyway, if it was me I'd give up the medal because I'd want a "clean win." But OTOH judging errors like this must happen all the time. When they're this egregious though, I think they should take the judges out to Olympia Stadium and make them catch Adam Nelson's shotputs.

OK, guys...let me axe you dis: which sport *doesn't* rely on judgment calls by people who can't or don't actually do the sport?

* Baseball/softball - umps blow calls all the time
* Soccer - refs do too
* Wrasslin (well, that's the way Rulon makes it look) - ref'd event
* Swimming - I wouldn't have thought so, but look how they almost took a medal from Michael Phelps for an "illegal turn" (the cops are everywhere!)
*Sailing - An American lost a medal for an illegal maneuver and had to sail in circles for a while as penance
*Track - step on that lane line and you're history

The only almost "pure" Olympic sport I can think off is the original one: the marathon: get from point A to point B and you win. Oh, never mind...we got drug tests that may or may not be accurate...

I concede that some judged events are much more easily influenced by non-participants, but at some level, they all can hinge on factors beyond the control of the athletes themselves.

Rulon does rule, though.

Well, of course there are referees in every sport. Else every sport would just be a Texas steel cage death match where the winner is the last man (or lady) standing. But umps don't turn doubles into bingles because you don't stick your slide, or award goals because of degree of difficulty on that bicycle kick.

The US Ladies lost to Brazil, so it doesn't matter now. Unless they push Rulon into the wee hours.

Paul Hamm's Gold Medal win is beginning to sound like the 2000 Presidential election. There's the inevtable accusations and counter-accusations of scoring errors, judicial bias, judicial errors, the works.

"This scoring error cost MY favorite athlete the event!"

"It's not a scoring error, it's an objective, mechanical scoring, not a subjective one conducted by YOUR biased referees."

"This call by the top Olympic officials cost MY favorite athlete the event. They're biased because MY favorite athlete didn't win!"

"That's after YOUR biased judges kept changing how the event was scored, what counts as a point, and even how long the event was supposed to go on!"

It's the same insanity, all over again.

I hope Jen doesn't mind me paraphrasing her:

"I feel for Hamm and all the AMERICAN athletes who have to endure the DELIBERATE MALICE of biased judges and the politics behind world sports competitions."

...and as Cowtown Pattie correctly points out, "given the 'overseas' opinion of Americans..." I can very well imagine what the bias of those judges will be, particularly in events where aesthetic interpretation is judged instead of a (largely) quantifiable achievement.