Digital Analogue

A memorable Olympic moment

As if there hadn't been enough weird-judging drama tonight already! The high bar competition was going along, some great routines were done, and then Alexei Nemov came up. He did the most spectacular bar routine ever, with something like six release moves, several of them in a row, and all executed beautifully; with only a small one-tenth hop on the landing. The score came in incredibly low, and---get this---the audience booed it. That's actually not that amazing; it happens with some regularity. But they booed, loudly, all of them, for eight minutes!

By about a minute in, it was starting to seem a little odd. Then, the judges started looking uncomfortable. The grand high poobah of the gymnastics meet walked over to the head judge (our friend Sawao Kato again) to discuss things; and then the Malaysian and Canadian judges were called over and questioned about the low scores they awarded. I don't know what was said, but they did modify the scores, which bumped up Nemov by a quarter-tenth. This barely put him into what was then third place, which of course he was bumped out of. I think he ended up finishing fifth or sixth of eight, and he really should have medalled. The audience kept booing, and eventually Nemov walked out on the floor and thanked the audience and motioned them to be quiet, and they cheered when he went out but then continued booing until Paul Hamm was actually into his routine.

Meanwhile Paul Hamm tied for gold (and was tiebroken down to silver) and Morgan Hamm tied for bronze (and was tiebroken out of a medal). I think that there is definitely a big shakeup ahead in men's gymnastics scoring....

'"OOPA!" is actually Greek for "watch out, don't light your hair on fire".' --Eva Sweeney