Olympics

[Peter Ahlstrom]

What did you think of tonight's unprecedented drama, where Nemov scored a 9.725 on the high bar and the crowd booed for 10 minutes until they changed the score (to a 9.775 which was, announcer Bart Connor agreed, still too low)?

I was astounded. And extremely entertained.

I would have booed too.

Personally I think they should change the scoring to be like diving scores, where the scores are totaled and then multiplied by a degree of difficulty. Earlier on the vault there were a ton of identical scores (which Bart Connor was amazed at, clearly superior or inferior routines being given the same scores) that had to be broken by annoying tiebreaks.

Also the whole "no more perfect 10s" thing sucks; that one dude tonight perfectly landed that vault he's been doing all week, the triple somersault half twist, an absolutely crazy vault, and they grudgingly gave it a 9.900. (Too bad he flubbed the landing on his next (much easier) vault and ended with the bronze.)

[House of Mustard]

I think any time that the outcome of a sport is determined by judges, you're going to have trouble.  Nemov totally deserved the silver (there's no arguing that the Italian shouldn't have won gold), but Nemov got the shaft.

Still, I don't believe in changing medals.  It's like any other sport -- refs make bad calls all the time that affect the outcome of the game.  Look at football: refs probably only call 1/5 or less of the holding calls.  But that's just part of the game.  The results aren't ever overturned.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

since I know you're all still wondering about Australia beating the pants off North America, don't worry, Dinosaur Comics has the answer

[Entsuropi]

So team GB (as they are called) took home 29 medals. Best since the LA Olympics apparently.

USA took home 103. Australia 49. We hate you all.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Its good to be an upstart colonist!