Although the Olympic movement is one of international athletic amity, the stakes involved and simple human error have produced a string of scoring scandals over the years. The most interesing thing about officiating scandals at the Olympics is actually how few of them there have been. Most professional sports organizations have a much longer, richer history of blunders and corrupt decisions than the Olympics. The real scandal in the more modern incidents of stinky scoring at the Olympics is not so much the scandals themselves, but the cover-up efforts of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
In a Cold War classic, the Gold Medal final for Men’s Basketball was a showdown between the USA and the USSR. The Americans were leading by 50-49 when the referee called a foul, stopping the game with one second remaining. The Soviets failed to score on free throws twice, and the Americans started to celebrate, assuming that they had won the game. However, due to a clock malfunction and a bizarre ruling by the FIBA representative, the Soviets were allowed to do a replay. The source of the ensuing scandal was not just the questionable FIBA ruling, but also that two seconds were added the clock instead of just one. That gave the Soviets just enough time to score a lay-up, “winning” the game 51-50.
The 1988 Seoul Robbery
In the 1988 Seoul games, the Gold Medal finals in boxing pitted American Roy Jones, Jr. against hometown hero Park Si-Hun. Jones absolutely whipped Park, landing 86 punches to Park’s 32. However, in a decision that mirrored professional boxing, the judges gave the fight to Park 3-2. It is widely believed that the judges were either bribed or somehow intimidated, and one of them has since admitted that the result was a mistake. On the one hand, the IOC tried to make the terrible decision up to Jones by awarding him the Val Barker Trophy for being the best stylistic boxer of the games, and all the judges were suspended. However, the later 1997 IOC investigation swept the scandal under the rug: despite finding that all three judges had been publically wined and dined by Korean officials, it made no official finding of wrongdoing.
At the 2002 Winter Olympics, the pairs competition was marred by scandal when the Russian pair, Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, were awarded the Gold despite making a glaring technical error: Shikharulidze stepped out of a double axel. The runners-up, Jame Sale and David Pelletier of Canada, had an error-free routine. It looked like the Canadians would upset the long Russian dominance in paired figure skating, and while the Canadians beat the Russians in technical scoring, their presentation scoring was just low enough to prevent them from overtaking their rivals. The press was outraged and accusations of biased scoring by the judges began to fly immediately. The event’s referee filed an official complaint about the scoring. In a move typical of the modern IOC, the scandal was partly defused by upgrading the Canadians to Gold, resulting in two Gold Medal-winning teams that year. Two of the judges were suspended and barred from participating in the 2006 Olympics.
The Nazis Get Their Way
In the final sprint of the 1936 cycling match, Germany’s Toni Merkens blatantly fouled Arie Van Vliet of Holland. Instead of being disqualified, Merkens was fined. As these games were the infamous 1936 Munich games, it has been widely believed ever since that this was due to pressure from the Nazis.
After the Doping in Athens
The 2004 summer games in Athens are widely remembered for being tarnished by the scores of athletes who tested positive for doping. However, there was also some awful officiating. While the scoring of swiming and gymnastic events came under such criticism than reforms were enacted, perhaps the worst officiating at the Athens Olympics was by fencing official Josef Hidasi of Hungary. His numerous errors in the Italy-China match resulted in his suspension for two years.
