Fair Olympics?

Maybe it's just me--well actually, it isn't, because the NBC commentators seemed to be noticing the same thing--but there seem to be some sort of shenanigans going on among the gymnastics judges at Beijing.

I guess it's being overshadowed by the bigger contoversy swirling around the ages of the Chinese atheletes, and I must say that I don't really get that one. I guess if they're really young, they get some sort of advantage over the taller girls. Judging from appearances, it must have been only a few months ago that these kids learned to walk, let alone win Olympics medals.

I'm more concerned right now about the rather glaring score boosts these children, er, women, are getting from the panel of judges. First there was an obvious scoring "mistake" over the weekend which robbed, was it Shawn Johnson?, of a medal; then there was the tiebreaker win by China's He Kexin over all-around champion Nastia Liukin. Everyone thought that one was a matter of pre-set rules, but I question how He got that high of a score to begin with.

But ok, those are judgment calls, so who knows?

But now, as of yesterday, I'm really scratching my head. I refer to the event in which Shawn Johnson finally won her gold, and teammate Nastia Liukin took the silver. Good work. At last.

But how in the world did He Kexin take the bronze? She fell off the beam, for crying out loud. Off. You know, as in, Oops, that does it. How do you win a medal when you fall off? Nobody's paying much attention to this, but I'm wondering if some of the other athletes are, you know the ones who didn't fall off the beam.

Somewhere in my memory is the recollection of a judge who was found out in a recent Olympics. Something about having been paid off; it was either a Summer Olympics, or maybe figure skating. I distinctly remember some definite cheating going on in that case.

So I can't help wondering. She fell off the beam! Come on, how does that merit a medal of any kind?