Silly Olympic Math

Author: Tommy Leung | 08.18.2008 | Category: Sports

The IOC can officially report that He Kexin of China won the Gold in the uneven bars event finals but, without some meaningful sudden death scenario, He Kexin and Nastia Liukin of the USA should both have received Gold. Liukin and He both scored a 16.725 in the event–creating a tie–but, with some illogical mathematics, Liukin fell into second place and a received a Silver.

The first tiebreaker scenario made sense. The competitor with the higher execution score would place ahead. That makes sense since execution is meaningful in gymnastics. However, He and Liukin had the same execution score.

The second tiebreaker scenario didn’t make sense. The calculation of the execution score takes into account 6 deductions. The two extremes are dropped and the four remaining deductions are averaged and then subtracted from 10. This second tiebreaker drops the next highest deduction and averages the remaining three.

Do you see the ironic and illogical reasoning behind this? The Olympics is a competition to find the best athelete or to put it a different way: an athlete who makes the least mistakes. Deductions are bad. This tiebreaker takes the highest remaining deduction and gets rid of it. The person who made a bigger error benefits. Does that really make sense?

(more…)

US Women’s Take Gold, Silver

Author: Tommy Leung | 08.15.2008 | Category: Sports

About time! Our women’s gymnastics team took the gold and silver in the all around finals. The Chinese had won gold in the men’s team, men’s all around, and women’s team. The Chinese national anthem was becoming quite common in the gymnastics arena. We finally got to hear a different tune.

Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson took the gold and silver respectively. Yang Yilin of China took the bronze.

Don’t Blame Sacramone

Author: Tommy Leung | 08.13.2008 | Category: Sports

Gymnastics is one of the events that I watch every Olympics and this time is no different. While our men’s team took the Bronze and were ecstatic about it, our women’s team took the Silver and the reaction was completely different. I’m not saying we should accept Silver and be done with it–our team is damn good and we should be aiming for the Gold. The Chinese team so happened to have been better on that day.

Alicia Sacramone would be the easy target to pick out and blame for our loss to China. NBC’s Johnny R explains why Alicia should not be blamed. She didn’t have her best performances at the team finals but, I’m sure she wanted to have done better–her reactions tell the story. There are still more events coming up for Alicia and other members of our gymnastics team. What we should be doing is supporting our athletes in their upcoming events.

There are still more Gold medals to be won and while the Chinese surprised us this time, we’ll be ready for them next time. :)

Lezak Finish

Author: Tommy Leung | 08.11.2008 | Category: Sports

I’ve always been a fan of the Olympic swimming competitions. The most recent 4×100m free relay where we won the gold was incredibly exciting. Jason Lezak managed to turn on the jets in the anchor leg to overcome the French. Watch it for yourself if you missed it on TV.