US Gymnast Alicia Sacramone has had a pretty rough go at the Olympics in Beijing, who blames herself for the US Gymnastics team having to settle for Silver due to her falling off of the balance beam. In yesterday’s vault competition, Alicia was had at least the third best performance, but was robbed of her Bronze medal when judges gave China’s Cheng Fei a higher score than Sacramone, even though Fei landed on her knees in the second vault.
Former Olympic Gymnastics coach and NBC Analyst Bela Karoly was pretty fired up about the judge’s decision and told everyone watching that it was a “rip off.” It was.
Alicia Sacramone doesn’t walk away from the Olympics empty handed as she has the team Silver, but she’s not ready to appreciate that just yet.
“I’m sure someday I will appreciate it for what it is,” Sacramone said. “But I still have to get to that point.”
What’s your opinion of this sham? Join the conversation below!
on Aug 18th, 2008
Total fix. I don’t know if you can say the Chinese themselves are cheating (apart from the fact they lied about the ages of their girls), but the fix was definitely, obviously in on the vault.
on Aug 18th, 2008
Well at least Fei got payback on the floor routine. It was funny seeing her cry, maybe she was hoping for some more sympathy vote? What a sham China has made gymnastics, beginning with with the under-age girls. In the end they get no real glory. To all the naive people who defend this fascist government, you have no clue how this sort of gov’t thinks. Defending it (either if you are Chinese or foreign), you are brainwashed or just plain stupid.
on Aug 19th, 2008
Hah! OK, first off, the Olympics suck. It’s 2008 and I want to watch events on youtube — not NBC’s website which is off limits to people accessing outside of the US. It’s ridiculous. The Olympics is all about these media corporations. And the event is played up so much like a Hallmark holiday. Ever wonder why nobody gives a damn about gymnastics when the Olympics aren’t on?? Nobody cares about amateur sports until you’re told to care about them.
on Aug 20th, 2008
Wow how many of you are actual gymnasts, and how may of you feel that US should win just because you live in the country? Do you know why you’re not the one on the panel? That’s right, you’re NOT judges! Gymnastics isn’t just about falling and landing but about the performance overall, and just because US didnt win, dont act like sore losers and claim that the entire event is corrupt. Also, people who defend this “fascist” government (who should look up the definition since the last time I checked, China was communist and fascism is different entirely) aren’t exactly stupid since, guess what, China’s economy is BOOMING and we’re practically in a recession. Therefore, stop complaining about stuff you know nothing about and just enjoy the show.
on Aug 21st, 2008
You guys are idiots. At least Nicole and Mark are making good points. The rest of you are acting like angry three-year-olds. You’re acting exactly like communists yourselves, expecting everyone else to listen to you just because you piss and moan loud enough to annoy the hell out of people.
By the way, keep your facts straight wen you’re accusing other people of cheating. Cheng Fei is 20 and her age isn’t part of the controversy.
Michel, you missed the point about the world press not caring. The rest of the world just cares about Anna Pavlova’s issue, not about how petty the US is. Of course, only US is pathetic enough to support itself and then expect everyone else to follow.
on Aug 21st, 2008
Everyone just calm down. Maybe Alicia was robbed, maybe not. It definitely looked like she was to the naked eye, but the truth of the matter is that none of us know how the judges decided the scores. So instead of getting all worked up and calling names over this one moment of the games, why can’t we all just celebrate the amazing American moments? Lezak’s amazing comeback, Phelps winning 8 golds, USA basketball still undefeated, Nastia winning the All-Around, Shawn finally getting a gold medal…things like that.
Because right now every single person on both sides of the argument looks pretty bad. Its a ridiculous thing to fight over, so drop it, forget about what happened to Alicia, and support USA athletes for the rest of the games instead of bickering with other Americans on a blog.
on Aug 22nd, 2008
Wow, the only sane person here is David. But, I must say that Im pretty ashamed too, having people like Austin represent the US when the best comeback they could get was f*** yourself.
In my opinion, though, Cheng did deserve the medal. She got 1.5 points deducted on the second vault with .8 points off for her fall. That leaves .7 points for other deductions. I thought that was pretty fair. Alicia, on the other hand, might have been gypped, but I definitely don’t think you should automatically start blaming the Chinese gymnasts for doing better since there ARE other competitors that also did well. Please don’t be ignorant yourself, because it just looks outright racist.
on Aug 22nd, 2008
Oh, as an afterthought, Alicias vault wasn’t perfect either AND it was a lot easier than Chengs. Don’t just toss the importance of the starting value away so fast when it definitely does make a difference. Alicia could actually not had deserved the medal and we should just let go of this issue entirely.