Jeneba Tarmoh On Conceding Final Spot In (2012 US Olympic Team) 100 Meters

[rocktivity]

Last edited Thu Jul 8, 2021, 11:22 PM - Edit history (10)

Dead Heat For Third Place

(6/23/12): Saturday night’s final of the women’s 100 meters at the 2012 Olympic Trials involved a photo-finish image to determine third place...

The outside camera is traditionally the one used in photo-finish images...(but it)...was inconclusive for determining third place due to athletes’ arms blocking a clear view of their torsos. Torso position is used to determine finishes and times...

Looking at the inside camera images, timers initially...posted Tarmoh as finishing third in unofficial results...The photo-finish image, shot at 3,000-frames-per-second, was then analyzed by timers and referees and unanimously ruled to be a dead heat...Tarmoh and Felix are both officially timed in 11.068 seconds...

Jeneba Tarmoh On Conceding Final Spot In 100 Meters

(Updated 7/4/12):...(A) day after conceding the spot to training partner Allyson Felix, Tarmoh was at peace with her choice not to participate in a runoff to break a third-place tie. She realizes that some will second-guess her decision..."If standing up for what I believe in and not running because I believe I earned that spot...(is) what makes you a quitter then I guess the definition of a quitter is misconstrued nowadays," Tarmoh told The Associated Press...

When she finished the original race, Tarmoh looked up to see her name on the scoreboard in the third spot behind winner Carmelita Jeter and runner-up Tianna Madison. She took a celebratory lap and soaked up the moment, hardly believing she was going to the Olympics in the 100. It was all taken away when she learned officials took a second look at the results and declared a dead heat...

The athletes and their agents met with USATF representatives Sunday, and Felix and Tarmoh announced they wanted settle matters on the track. The other options were a coin flip or one athlete conceding the spot...On Monday, hours before the winner-take-all race was scheduled to be take place and shown on NBC, Tarmoh threw in the towel...

"I worked really, really hard to earn that spot in the 100...It was more than me winning, it was me...cramping up in the middle of practice...throwing up at practices...getting mentally prepared, physically prepared...It was me knowing that when I crossed that finish line, that I put my all on the track...All of a sudden someone's telling me, 'Sorry, we changed our mind. You didn't get third. It's a dead heat.' It was an emotional roller coaster..."

Well, if that's the story, Jeneba, I have bad news for you -- you ARE a quitter.

Remember Paul Hamm, the 2004 Olympics gymnast who won a gold medal because the scores were calculated wrong? The officials said that nothing could be done about it because the rules forbade changing the final results. Hamm has held on to the medal, and I would, too: the OFFICIAL results say that he earned it. It's been suggested he return it anyway -- out of the kindness of his heart or good sportsmanship or something. But as long as the official results say that he won the gold medal, Hamm should keep it. The Olympic scorers made the mistake; THEY'RE the ones who should have to correct it.

Tarmoh's situation is different: this time, the judges DID do the right thing and corrected the official results when it was determined that a mistake had been made. She DIDN'T finish third officially; she tied. And if Tarmoh didn't want to race again (not a bad choice -- they both could have ended up injured), she should have requested the coin toss. Flip-flopping on the runoff makes her look like a bad sport as well as a quitter.

But this story does have a happy ending: Tarmoh is going to the Olympics, anyway, as a member of the 400-meter relay "pool." Here's hoping that she's emotionally strong enough to handle it.


rocktivity

[joeybee12]

1. Not quite right about Paul Hamm...

The south korean was scored incorrectly by the judges...that could have been changed had the south koreans noticed it...they are allowed to challenge it at the time...they did not because they phucked up and didn't notice...so Paul Hamm knew what he had to earn to win, so his routine was geared to getting a certain score...had the officials got it right or the South Koreans noticed and gotten it changed, then Paul Hamm would have altered his routine (which followed the south korean's) accordingly...everyone knows routines are changed at the last minute, not drastically, adding something to gain points, taking somthing out that might not be necessary to win and so on...the south koreans know that too and they were the biggest bunch of whiners at that Olympics.

[rocktivity]

2. Bad math is bad math is bad math -- and unlike a bribe, is easy to correct

...FIG (The International Gymnastics Federation)'s letter to Hamm cited a scoring error in which the start value for Yang was incorrectly given as a 9.9 instead of a 10.0. As a result, Yang's score should have been 57.874, which would have been higher than Hamm's 57.823. A week of discussions among FIG, the United States Olympic Committee and the Korean delegation ensued with no resolution...

(N)ow that International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge has declared there will be no change to the medal standings, the USOC has withdrawn its support of the notion of dual golds.

The USOC said it was not fair for FIG to put Hamm in the position of determining his own medal fate... link


rocktivity

[joeybee12]

3. Each squad has a person solely dedicted to making sure their

gymnasts are scored correctly...major phuck up by the South Koreans...again, the south korean went first...they had an opportunity to change it right away...they phucked up and noticed it much later.

[joeybee12]

4. I actually respect Jeneba for conceding...

She's on the team no matter because of the relay, and your conceding generates good will.

[rocktivity]

5. UPDATE 1: From her interview with ESPN:

Last edited Fri Dec 6, 2019, 03:35 PM - Edit history (6)

link

...The night before (the meeting with USTA)...I said (to) Allyson, "I'm not comfortable with the runoff, and I'm not comfortable with the coin toss...I don't really want to anything, honestly -- can we talk about this?"

She said, "Well, how do you feel?" And I said, "I felt like if I would have won fair and square, that's how it should be -- they shouldn't change their minds. If it was you, they wouldn't change their minds...I did my victory lap, I went to the press conference, I celebrated with joy. That shouldn't be taken away from me."

In other words, "Would you be so kind as to aid, abet, and enable me in preserving my fantasy that I finished third alone?" If I were Allyson, I would have whipped out the photo finish image and asked, "Do you seriously expect ANYONE -- least of all me -- to look at this, look you in the eye, and say, 'You're right -- They shouldn't have changed their minds?'"

...(At the meeting), my agent said..."Allyson, Jeneba was under the impression that if we talk to the time masters and he tells us how he feels and how he thinks, then you will concede your spot." Allyson said, "...I meant that if you could change the official result, then I'll concede my spot...I worked hard for it, too." When she said that, I was just -- in shock...

Well, this takes us back to the moral of the Paul Hamm story: it's the OFFICIAL results that count. The only way I'd concede the spot would be in return to her publicly conceding that the the initial results had been incorrect and that their finish had indeed been a dead heat.


UPDATE 2: Finally found out exactly what a relay pool is:

...Tarmoh is still going to London, where she’ll be in the pool for the 4x100 relay. That means she’ll run heats and try to qualify the United States for the final, when the faster runners will take over. If they win a medal, she wins a medal...