WinningFair

The spirit of the Olympics is embodied in the pledge the athletes undertake to keep at its opening ceremony. Every athlete promises to play fairly and obey all of the Olympic rules. A single Chinese athlete took this oath at the Beijing Opening Ceremony on behalf of all athletes. She held a corner of the Olympic Flag while repeating the oath:

"In the name of all competitors, I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic games, respecting and abiding by the rules that govern them, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honor of our teams."

The oath was written by Baron de Coubertin the founder of the Modern Olympic Games in 1920. Olympic officials also take an oath. While holding a corner of the Olympic Flag, one official from the host country repeats a similar oath on behalf of all the officials.

It is therefore sad and disappointing that there are questions hanging over the Beijing Olympics that must be asked. Although it would be churlish to deny the scope, scale and sheer majesty of these Games we do have to ask about the morality and ethics of their Chinese hosts.

This appears to be especially relevant where the judging of the event is subjective. By this we mean that a panel of judges rather than simply measuring the speed, height, length of a competition instead evaluates the quality of the competitors performance. Look at how well China has done in these subjective events.

Watching the last day of competition in the boxing competition there is no question in my mind that when the competition was close the Chinese boxers were given an unfair scoring advantage. The way scoring in this sport works is that there are four judges and each has a computer button to push for each punch one of the contestants’ lands on his opponent. Only if all four push their button within one second will the point register.

Therefore if you wanted to “fix” a close match all you would have to do is get to just one judge. I suspect that no one has any proof to this effect, but the distinct suspicion remains that this is happening. Perhaps such suspected corruption isn’t a money issue, but more to do with politically or personally favoring one country above another. But if you were to forensically examine the subjectively judged events you would be forced to conclude that there was a disproportionate amount of Chinese success. In boxing, in the bad old days, they used to call these kind of results, “home town decisions”.

Yesterday there was an attempt at an outrageously unfair piece of judging in the quarter final of the over 67kg taekwondo competition. Sarah Stevenson, the British girl was one point behind her two time Olympic gold medal winning Chinese opponent, Chen Zhang. With moments to go Sarah clearly landed a kick to Zhang’s head, thus scoring two points. Somehow this blow was invisible to the judging panel, no score registered. The British contestant and team, plus all neutrals were outraged.

For the next hour there was pandemonium behind the scenes as the British team protested volubly to the authorities. In the experience of all those who have ever observed the fate of such objections there was no chance for it. The shock was therefore enormous when it was announced that the result had been overturned. Sarah Stevenson was declared the winner and would fight in the semi-final. She did so, without any further preparation and lost to a feisty, excellent fighter from Mexico. Then, re-gathering her forces, Sarah won the bronze fight off. It is a great pity for Sarah that she suffered this fate, as she has, when properly prepared, beaten the Mexican twice previously.

Perhaps, during the final moments of the quarter final bout, let’s be kind, a judge was unsighted or just felt such intense outside pressure that he or she hadn’t dared score the British blow, but this simply should not happen. Why is there no video replay available for all the subjective event judging? These kinds of “mistakes” are easy to overcome. When in doubt, look at the disputed moment again.

Similarly some, if not all, of the gymnastic and diving scores are questionable for the same reasons. Discount for the moment that there are big questions still remaining over the eligibility of some of the Chinese competitors, and you begin to feel there are severe doubts about how China has operated its participation in these games, which are supposed to epitomize the Olympic spirit.

There was in these games, a feeling that the Chinese government, rather than their Olympic committee, was in total control. Take nothing away from the amazing Chinese results in almost all of the sports in which they participated and remember that just 16 years ago they won virtually no medals. From nothing to sporting superpower in 4 Olympics is a remarkable achievement that we must all applaud. But cheating is not permitted and there is more than a suspicion that some results were fixed.

Let us all learn from these events, and remember the oaths that are taken so that London hosts a great event, that is also demonstrably impartial in 2012. We want to move up from our own amazing fourth place in the Olympic medals table to an even higher position, but let’s do it fairly.