Warbler said:
And why in hell didn't NBC cover this at all. If it weren't for none's link, I would have no idea about this.
I knew all about this, then again I've been following the Olympics through other places other than NBC. I even posted an animated gif from it earlier.
Warbler said:
Also I can understand the need to keep Shim on the playing surface, if the decision making process in the protest, was only going to take 5 minutes or so. But why the hell did she have to stay out there for over 30 minutes?
So when this happened I also found out a lot more about fencing so I'll explain this entire thing for ya.
Prior to the match Shin A. Lam got some kind of preferred standing status (don't ask me how that's granted. I don't know I just know that she something like this.) that means that if she either tied or had higher points she would move on to the next fight. This fight was for the chance the battle for the gold medal in the next fight. The loser would be given a chance to battle for the bronze in the next fight.
So at that moment Shin A. Lam was tied for points with Heidemann. All she had to do for a chance at a gold medal fight was run out the clock. Which is when the clock didn't function properly. Her coach made the appeal, the judges reconvened and in spite of the clock malfunction they decided to keep their ruling. This took about 10 minutes. Well Shin wasn't satisfied with that and, the rules in fencing state that if you leave the piste(the platform where they fight on) you are stating that you agree with the judges decision. If you still disagree you must stay there. So approx. 30 minutes into her stance on the piste one of the judges tried to persuade her to accept the decision. She refused and at approx. 45 minutes security had to come in and take her off the piste.
Afterwards both combatants lost their medal rounds. Heidemann got silver Shin got nothing.
All in all even if the clock malfunctioned or the timekeeper screwed up I read a comment elsewhere that makes sense out of this whole thing. "They just didn't want to piss off omega the olympic clock sponsor." Paraphrasing the comment I read. When you think about it like that it makes a hell whole lot of sense. The judges probably thinking "Oh it's just a match leading into a medal fight. If we just quickly sweep it under the rug it'll be forgotten about and omega won't get mad." "Good idea, gotta keep that sponsor money flowing!!!!" It simply doesn't make any sense any other way. Considering today's replay friendly climate. There's no reason they couldn't have just given her and everyone a simple straight hard proof. That according to the tapes the start of the match happened at such and such time and, the point was scored at such and such time. Then make a declarative absolute ruling based off of undeniable fact. Instead they decided to forego the obvious solution to the whole thing and made it into "we just don't think the point was scored outside of the time limit."
