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player ready...The crowd’s overwhelming jeers brought the final day of Olympic gymnastics to a jarring halt.
The booing, whistling and hissing began as soon as Russian Alexei Nemov’s score flashed from the rafters for his horizontal bar routine in Monday’s individual finals. The judges at Olympic Indoor Hall gave him a 9.725, far below the crowd’s expectation.
This was the second devastating judging blow for the sport during a gut-wrenching five days that has gymnastics under fire. The sport is now at risk of losing its credibility.
Nemov had won over fans with six spectacular release moves. He took a large step on his landing, which marred his dismount. Thousands still found the score offensive.
American Paul Hamm, already embroiled in the controversy over the all-around title, had the misfortune of competing after Nemov.
Hamm stepped up to the apparatus, and the noise went up a decibel. He remained composed, trying not to show his annoyance.
The judges raised Nemov’s score to a 9.762 seemingly because they buckled under the crowd’s insistence, but it wasn’t enough to silence them. The clamor finally subsided after 8 1/2 minutes, when Hamm motioned for Nemov to quiet the audience.
Hamm kept the crowd silent–briefly–with one of the best routines of his career.
He and Italy’s Igor Cassina tied with a 9.812, further angering the crowd, but Cassina narrowly won gold because he made fewer execution errors.
“It almost felt like a movie or something,” Hamm said of the crazed atmosphere.
He had never experienced anything like this, and neither has his sport.
Hamm said he did not take the booing personally because he believed it was directed at the judges.
“It has nothing to do with me,” he said.
But anti-American sentiment had not been higher in these Olympics. Some fans said they were purely expressing disgust over Nemov’s score. Others in the crowd said their displeasure had as much to do with Hamm as Nemov’s score.
“The all-around was fixed,” said a European woman who declined to give her name or country. “It looks like they’re trying to give [Hamm] this title as well.”
Hamm rallied from 12th place to win all-around by 12/1000ths of a point last week. He became the first men’s all-around champ for the U.S. and a poster boy for the Games.
Three days later, the International Gymnastics Federation ruled that the score given to Yang Tae Young of South Korea on parallel bars should have been a tenth higher, which could have given Yang the championship.
Yang ended up with bronze. The federation suspended three judges in connection with the mistake but said the standings could not change.
If not for the men’s judging scandal, the biggest story of these Games would be Carly Patterson’s defeat of Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina in the all-around Thursday.
Patterson won a silver medal on balance beam Monday. She will leave Athens with gold and silver medals for her individual achievements and a silver for the team’s runner-up finish to Romania. Patterson’s teammates, Courtney Kupets and Mohini Bhardwaj, finished fifth and sixth, respectively, on beam and floor exercise.
Immediately after her balance beam routine, Patterson faced questions about disparaging remarks Khorkina made to Russian reporters in which Khorkina alleged that judges favored Patterson because she is American.
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“She’s probably just a sore loser,” Patterson said. “I don’t really care what she says because I won, and that’s all I really wanted to do.”
Khorkina’s remarks are a footnote compared with the attention Hamm and the Korean delegation are getting.
The heightened frenzy that preceded Hamm on his final event of the Olympics was almost representative of the last five chaotic days.
But as far as Hamm is concerned, he will leave Athens on a high note.
“I am very proud of my performance [Monday] and all my performances at these Olympics,” Hamm said. “I’m just glad the last performance I had was a tremendous one.”