Another 15 minutes

So now the Olympics are over and the results for Sweden are nothing but failures and disappointments, allthough it was nice to win the silver medal in tennis and also the respectful performance by Jörgen Persson in tabletennis was nice to see, too bad he didn’t get a medal, he deserved it. The 2008 Olympics in China was overall a very impressive event, new and well designed venues and arenas, lots of new world records (almost suspicously many actually), and also outstanding both opening and closing ceremonies. I sure hope Sweden will do better in the next Olympics though, we are way better in many sports than was displayed here, it almost felt like we had a curse on us. Actually I think Sweden performed its worst Olympics of 104 years, so I guess it can’t get any worse atleast.

This is the worst sportsmanship I’ve seen in the Olympics, I think it’s very upsetting when players attack the referees in any sport, but Cuban taekwondo contender Angel Matos takes the cake when he attacks the Swedish referee with a kick to the face after being disqualified.

Rules say you have one minute to attend wounds and such during the game, and Matos was disqualified for taking longer than one minute outside the ring. He responded by pushing several of the judges and kicking the main referee in the face and had to be escorted out. The trainer of Matos does not apologize for his behaviour but instead claims he was offered money for Matos to lose the match. The referee, Chakir Chelbat, one of the best referees in taekwondo in the world, started to bleed from his lip and was taken to a hospital. Matos and his trainer are now suspended for life, good riddance. Giving the referee a kick to the face!? Asswipe…

After Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamain and SOK (Swedish Olympic Committee) reported FILA to CAS (international Arbitrary Court of Sports) they are now forced to make changes in the organisation to work towards the Olympic spirit, rules on fair play and always have a jury to receive protests available. In the semi final match that Ara lost FILA refused to even look at Sweden’s protest. I hope this also involved a rule where the judges are decided by lottery just before the game, this should be standard is all sports in international tournaments I think. Ara will still not get his bronze medal though, but that wasn’t so important to him and never expected either.

A hacker by the alias Stryde (Mike Walker) is reported to have found information that Chinese gymnast and Olympic gold medalist He Kexin is only 14 years old, while the rules say that you have to be 16 to compete in gymnastics.

Googling for information about He Kexin he found that her name was not found in official records of the Chinese sportsadministration, and while searching the cached pages he found that her information had been deleted. Continuing the search on the Chinese search engine Baidu he claim to have found two documents saying that Kelix was born on January 1st, 1994, thus being only 14 years old during the Olympics 2008. Also nine months before the Olympics the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported her age to be 13, that statement is now withdrawn.

I wouldn’t be surprised if she is indeed 14 and that China is desperate enough for gold in gymnastics so they turn to cheating. Don’t they just have gymnasts over 16 that are good enough? Kelix can compete next Olympics when she’s 17 and probably win gold fair and square.

Ara Abrahamian and the Swedish Olympic Committee (SOK) are now reporting FILA to the court of arbitration of sports (CAS) for misconduct during the semi final match that got a lot of attention after Ara threw away his bronze medal in protest of the referee gave the win to Italys Andrea Minguzzi after some debatable judging.

The report is about misconduct on FILA’s part when they denied Ara and SOK to file a protest to change the verdict of the semi final match and also to punish the referees involved in the fight. The hearing will occur on Friday at 9 am local time. Let’s hope FILA is put under some kind of investigation and that some changes will be made to make the sport fair and honorable.

You can read more about this in my previous entries on the corruption in Olympic wrestling and the outing of a “medal club”.

The International Olympic Committee has sent a letter to the Swedish justice department requesting that action is taken against The Pirate Bay for having links to the video of the opening ceremony. The Pirate Bay responded by changing their logo on the website to “The Beijing Bay” and also as a protest against the corruption in the wrestling event tagged related files with “give_us_the_gold”.

I think it’s rediculous that they try to stop this video, for what reason? Pretty much everyone has seen it anyway and no one is getting any money from it by sharing it. The video can also be found on sites like YouTube with no trouble at all. Get over it! Why not be proud of the fact that people liked it and want others to see it too?

The Swedish rowing duo Markus Oscarsson and Anders Gustafsson deliberately failed the K-2 canoeing in the Olympics today. The explination for this is that by qualifying to K-2 they also qualified for K-1, an event that they both have a higher chance of winning. The K-1 race starts only one hour after the K-2, so they decided to save their energy for the second race. The rules say that you must compete in an event you have qualified for.

I think the honorable thing to do is to do your best in all events you’re competing in and try to win them all, even if you don’t get a medal in either one. That way you don’t look like an ass if you fail the race you were really hoping to win.