December 05, 2005

Bad and good

Remember how it felt watching Onyok Velasco lose to the Bulgarian boxer at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics? Bad, right? For days people moaned and groaned about how Onyok's score refused to move despite him landing blow after blow of crisp punches to the Bulgarian's face, about how we were robbed of the gold medal.

Well, I remember.

And I sympathize with some of the athletes and their supporters at the SEA Games because they definitely feel that way right now -- they were robbed of their gold medals.

There's no question about the integrity of results in events that involved objective accuracy such as races, ballgames, and most athletics. But when it comes to subjective scoring, I cringe at the blatant "inaccuracy" in some of the scoring.

Image hosted by Photobucket.comThe wushu Nanchan event is one example.

Joan and I have been watching the wushu competitions whenever we can, and even watched the replays on TV, up to its last day.

We've seen true winners who simply blew the competition away at their first few moves. We've seen tight situations where victories were secured because of a slight wobble here, or a weak shout there. And we've seen athletes ending up in second place despite flawless performances, and the gold going to one who, even to the untrained eye, obviously gave a lesser performance.

But heck, I bet amassing gold is just one of the perks for hosting the Games. I just content and try to assure myself that most of golds we've won are well-deserved.

I do not blame the Thai for suspecting fraud in the scoring system -- some events deserved that comment. Anyway, it will be them under the spotlight come 2007.

Also, maybe PGMA needs yet another diversion to veer our attention from Garci.

Just the same, cheers to all SEAG athletes for a job well done!

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