Is China cheating?
August 16th, 2008Your thoughts?
I’d love to hear them.
I personally think yes. I watched only one night. Several of us went over to a friend’s house and watched women’s gymnastics and men’s swimming. Well, you can’t cheat in swimming because it’s obvious who wins. However, gymnastics, I saw some pretty low scores for the Americans and the Romanians while high, undeserved scores for the Chinese. I heard it was all Olympics long, but I only watched one night.
What was interesting was hearing Nadia Comaneci’s old coach trying not to use the c-word. You could tell it was paining him not to say it. Those scores just didn’t seem right, was about as far as he went.
Well you asked…
I don’t think there should be ANY sport in the Olympics that isn’t objectively scored. Meaning the guy who crosses the line wins.
Javelin throw
Run Fast races
Swim Fast Races
Boat Fast Races
Ice skating races
Toss a heavy thing
Pick up a heavy stuff
Ride things (bobsleds, horses) races
Jump over things
Ballroom Dancing? Gymnastics? And the most favorite of all time silly thing: Figure Skating! Everyone loves to watch it (I HATE it because it is so silly, but I’m a contrarian anyway), but it is completely subjective.
Maybe if they have “Figure skate till you drop” contests that would be OK. You get out and skate around looping and jumping (mandated # per minute) until you fall down, then the person who outlasts everyone else wins! Or better yet! Just get rid of it.
You asked!
One more!
Submission or knockout fighting (of any kind, bare knuckle, gloves, feet, slap fests, whatever) Forget ‘points’.
Yes. Judges get bribed in every Olympics. China’s using underaged gymnasts too.
I personally think no, but then again, I also think that Michael Phelps is not cheating, but am open to the idea that in 10 years time they discover a new plant that will be classified as a drug and turns out he was taking it. Just stating my opinion…
LMAO at wallflower’s suggestions! Good idea!
I quit watching the Olympics when I discovered how hard gymnastics and figure skating training is on the bodies of the young children that participate. A sport is not worth crippling yourself for life!
I personally think we’re getting what we asked for by allowing China to host the games. Preparation for the games was a human rights nightmare for their citizens!
tshsmom.
Indeed. I had a neighbor whose 12 year old child was a ‘Class A’ gymnast (that is top level). Not quite Olympic level - her mother was a failed gymnast… ergo she was living through her poor little half starved daughter. The kid was about 25 lbs under weight (and dieted like a runway model), did gymnastics 4 hours a day (plus school). Great kid and there was every indication that she loved what she was doing. Still I think it is incumbent on parents to help protect their children’s bodies when they too young to have developed the ability to do so themselves.
Hell, they made her wear a helmet when riding a bike! Yet they would allow her to take those truly agonizing falls from uneven parallel bars. One injury and she was out of the running, and she has a permanently messed up spine through all the contortions they put them through. She’ll suffer for it when she gets older and for what? A couple of cheap ‘ribbons’ and trophies and no chance at all at the Olympics anyway. All for mommy’s ‘dream’. Sad. Very sad.
Very sad, at least in my opinion.
wallflower, that’s the same kind of story I’ve heard hundreds of times! To me it’s not just sad, it’s criminal!
I knew a mother that cut the cast off her son’s arm early, just so he could participate in the state hockey tournament. What kind of mother cares more about glory than the health of her child?!
I guess that being American you’re very proud of all the gold medals Mikael Phelps won, very well, but I can’t help thinking of Marion Jones.
So what about cheating? it’s not only the Chinese in my opinion. (you asked)
tshsmom - I’m of your way of thinking. It is criminal, although those sorts of parents don’t see it that way. They want their kid to achieve ‘fame and glory’, but I wonder, at their actual motives. Do they want that reflected glory that comes of having a Super Child, or for the child’s sake itself?
I live in the land of ‘football’ (Texas) and see it everywhere I look. Massive, expensive stadiums at all the high schools so that 12 elite athletes can prance around and show off for their parents, et al. Certainly the ‘band’ gets to play and the cheerleaders leap around, but they don’t get contracts with the NFL. They rarely get Big Scholarships from Big Colleges. But those football jocks DO.
Why can’t they see it? Why do we keep voting for these sorts of things? I don’t understand it at all. Most parents have children that will never be elite enough to take part, and yet they vote for big school budgets.
But then again, I hate schools in general. Just gigantic warehouses. I tutor math for kids in my local neighborhood (I’m a mathematician/Engineer crossbreed), and the pitiful teaching that goes on in public (or other) schools sickens me.
I bet I could take an ‘average’ kid for 8 hours a day (which would include homework), starting at the age of 9 with NO PREVIOUS SCHOOLING, I could take them through the entire HS curriculum, plus two languages in 4 years. Kids are sponges. They just get all dried out and bored and steamrollered by the ‘one size fits all’ that is the school system. Schools are enormous money-pits, where children ARE warehoused, and where all the fun of learning is wrung out of them. 12 years? To be barely literate? And barely able to do algebra? That is ludicrous! Most teachers are not all that bright, and the ones that are shake their heads in disgust at what they have to deal with day in and day out.
Rant concluded. Thank you ZombieSlayer for your forum, even though I sort of stole it.
I’ve heard enough reports of some sort Chinese desire to “beat” the US so we and the world would see that China is approaching top dog status on the global stage. So yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me that China is pulling out the stops (fair or foul) to win both the total number of golds and total metal count.
wallflower, it’s the same here, only with hockey instead of football.
We homeschool our son so, needless to say, I totally agree with your school rant!
You really need to start a blog of your own so we can discuss these topics in detail!
Yes
I’m not sure if this has anything to do with China specifically. Plenty of athletes have cheated in the Olympics, many with the blessing of their governments.
Well, there is a lot of controversy about China cheating, and I would probably go to the side that they are - they cheat us with poisoned dog/cat food, poisoned toys, and other substandard, if not dangerous, goods - why not here?
I think they’re big time cheating. That one girl who fell on her butt and she still got 15 points. and that lady who got a perfect dismount and she got under 15? how’s that?
jeff and I watched for a bit the other night and it was sort of cool watching them try to stay in the lines but other than that it was boring… But cheating you never know.
Most people cheat one way or another during their lifetime, ‘hands up’ those who have never cheated.. It is a prime opportunity for China to cheat and if they can they will. your turn will come when the USA next host the Olympics.
Aussies are calling foul due to Aussies coaching Brit winning cyclists. Never mind in two weeks it’l all be gone, then we can get back to our fav indoor sport.
‘Cheating the tax man’.
In anycase if you have problems, read my latest post.
In a related note, India and its 1 billion population has a whopping 2 medals.
India is an emerging industrial nation needs all of its energy-incl human energy to improve the quality of life for its people. Most professional human sporting icons are are bunch of selfish over rewarded glory hunters who expire earlier than the average M E Of Life. Only fat cats, legal eagles and drug induced winners profit from these wasteful outgoings, while the under privileged are dragged further into the mire. Personally I would like to say “bollocks to the Olympics”.
I can’t stand watching anything with subjective scores for just this reason.
Why do they do this crap?
Actually many underprivileged people use the Olympics as a springboard to a better life. The Olympics also have a lot of historical and cultural significance. As Hitler was proclaiming the master race, Jesse Owens, a black man, came to Germany and dominated the Olympics right in front of Hitler’s eyes. It made Jesse Owens a national hero in a time of immense racial tensions.
skeletor sambora. Great stuff, I remember it well . saw it at the flicks in 1936 as kid of ten living in the sticks. H A G D.
When I was a kid sport was fun few cared who won.
Hi Brig, you stalking me, I hope,X. now wait for the scandal.
I have no real idea, but would I be surprised if they were? Nope. After they accused Tibetan Buddhists of plotting to disrupt the games by starting riots, replaced that little girl singer with a more photogenic girl who couldn’t sing, and treated foreign journalists like toejam, they have to do SOMETHING to make themselves look good…
The scoring system does get to be a drag, doesn’t it. I love the idea of skating or ballroom-ing until you fall down…..
Yes! They were cheating!
Taking anuvver decko at China’s Medal tally, there seems to be a smelly of velly bad anomalies,
China’s high ratio of gold gongs appears to be disproportionate to their minor awards, compared to other contesting countries. Dirty dodgy doings I fink.
Hi SME, x.
Hi B, thanks for calling, x.
I watched nary a second of the Olympics, but you have to question their ethics just by the substituting of the “pretty” girl for the “non-pretty” girl in the opening ceremony, but letting the non-pretty girl still do the singing. Complete BS.