the tindog coffeehouse

TVGuide.com seems to be the only rational voice regarding the recent scoring controversy in the women’s gymnastics competition.

On the uneven bars Chinese gymnast He Kexin tied with American gymnast Nastia Liukin, but the Chinese gymnast got the gold medal thanks to an obscure tie-breaking rule.  The NBC announcers were naturally outraged.

But TVGuide’s Olympics blog puts it in perspective (emphasis mine):

A great night of performances in a variety of sports was tarnished Monday by some unattractive whining from the NBC gymnastics crew. The controversial tie-breaker in the women’s uneven bars certainly didn’t seem to make sense, but you have to wonder how much howling we would have heard if an American had come out top. China’s He Kexin and Nastia Liukin of the U.S. had identical scores, but a seemingly arbitrary formula gave the gold to He. NBC’s team — Al Trautwig, Elfie Schlegel and Tim Daggett — took great issue with this, and Trautwig even went so far as to question whether He felt she deserved the gold. Back in the studio, bellowing Bela Karolyi continued his ranting to Bob Costas, who did his best to remain impartial. I don’t remember anyone questioning Paul Hamm’s all-around victory four years ago, when a scoring error pushed his South Korean opponent back to silver.

The next event, the men’s vault, also involved a tie-breaker, one with a more clear-cut resolution — and no American athlete involved. The NBC team let that one go.

So just to recap: If there’s a scoring controversy that results in an American losing, then that’s wrong.  If it results in an American winning or if no American is involved, then that’s OK.