Swedish athlete throws medal and quits!

[thewiseguy]

BEIJING, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian threw down his greco-roman bronze medal in protest on Thursday after his bid for Olympic gold was ended by a decision denounced by the Swedish coach as “politics.”

Abrahamian took the bronze from around his neck during the medal ceremony, stepped from the podium and dropped it in the middle of the wrestling mat then walked off.

“I don’t care about this medal. I wanted gold,” he said.

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=reu-wrestling&prov=reuters&type=lgns

[Heidi]

1. Did anyone call the waaaaaaaaaaa-ambulance? (nt)

[thewiseguy]

4. To be honest the refrees costed him the gold medal

I understand his frustration but that was not the right response from him.

[Fuzz]

10. I didn't see the match, what happened?

[thewiseguy]

17. He thought he had won the match but the refrees said otherwise

He got into a shouting fight with the judges too.





More details on the story here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080814.wolymprotest14/GSStory/beijing2008/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080814.wolymprotest14

[Heidi]

21. He can probably appeal. That's more appealing than whining. (nt)

[SoCalDem]

5. And Jerry Falwell wants a big glass of iced tea

:rofl:

[Heidi]

19. Oh, Lord, won'tcha buy me a MERCEDES BENZ?

Janis is lookin' down at Jerry from heaven and goin', "Sorry, Jerr, fresh outta ice tea, bubba." :rofl:

[zbdent]

22. I want a new drug ... one that won't make me sick ...

(Huey Lewis) ...

[Turbineguy]

2. I want a new BMW

but it looks like I'm getting a pair of used roller skates.

[LisaM]

3. Shades of Surya Bonali

I remember when she had a hissy fit once after getting a silver (not in the Olympics).

[amandabeech]

15. She lost the 1994 World Championship gold medal to Yuka Sato of Japan

on the thinnest of margins. She took her medal off and held it in her hands while crying, while standing on the podium during the playing of the Japanese anthem.

I thought she did very well in her career, considering her abysmal basic skating skill. She was a tremendous athlete, but never had the proper coaching to actually stroke around the rink smoothly, which I'm sure she had the ability to do. Surya SKATED better during exhibitions. I saw her do a great number that ended in a left-foot-landed backflip to a triple salchow. Amazing.

Yuka, on the other hand, was and is like buttah. She had and still has, I think, the best feet in ladies skating ever.

[LisaM]

31. Remember how she wouldn't even get on the podium at first?

They had to coax her up, and she said that she didn't deserve the silver.

I had trouble watching her skate. You could kind of hear her blades scraping the ice. She did improve quite a bit over the years, but since watching people do back flips in skating has never done much for me, I wasn't a huge fan. I also didn't like how she did the back flip during warmups to startle the other skaters. She was always getting called down for that. She did work hard though.

[amandabeech]

35. Yeah, I remember. It was the worst display of poor sportsmanship in skating that I remember.

My coach would go crazy when I mentioned Surya. Coach Julie couldn't stand her skating, in fat, she seemed to think that it wasn't really skating. Sort of like that double axel from nowhere to start her "Four Seasons" program. It proved her athleticism, but it would have been more impressive if she'd done it at full speed with a tremendous landing and run out.

She did improve, particular after she went pro and relaxed. Coach Julie said that in practice, Surya was a better *skater* than when she competed. Her knees actually bent!

The backflip into the salchow was something because she actually held the inside edge gliding on one foot before she moved into the salchow. If she'd held an edge like that going into the salchow in her competitive programs, it would have improved the jump.

Doing the backflip in people's faces, however, was another display of poor sportsmanship.

I agree that she worked hard.

You obviously like skating. Did you skate as a child? I didn't--took it up as a spastic adult.

[LisaM]

38. I did skate as a kid - never really got anywhere, but I took lessons for a few years

as an adult, I used to skate fairly often, till a few years ago, I bought new skates, was testing them out and decided to take one more turn around the rink doing back cross-cuts, and fell and got a concussion. I really need to get over that moment. It's fun and great exercise!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. That was my first thought, too

Surya had great potential, but she always seemed stiff, as if no one had ever told her what to do with her arms.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Is this justified anger or being a sore loser?

[Dr. Strange]

24. I've tried to find an article that addresses that, but have yet to be successful.

I don't know if the journalists are lazy or don't know that much about the sport.

Personally, I like to think that I know a lot about wrestling, but this stuff doesn't resemble Monday Night Raw that much. :)

[thewiseguy]

25. Try this

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080814.wolymprotest14/GSStory/beijing2008/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080814.wolymprotest14

[Dr. Strange]

27. I read that one.

In Greco-Roman wrestling, the mat chairman has the ultimate say. He can agree with the referee and judge or over-rule them. The post-match speculation was that Abrahamian had been "screwed" but that it was unlikely filing an appeal would change anything.

But I can't tell if the mat chairman over-ruled a committee decision or (more importantly) what the questionable call/decision was. Hopefully they'll get some reporting from someone who knows the sport well enough to explain the issue.

[BrklynLiberal]

28. So that article mentions that there is a chance he was screwed out of a gold medal.

[TwilightGardener]

7. Yeah, none of the other athletes really wanted gold--just you, you speshul little man.

[soleft]

8. Attention Swedish Youth

This is not a role model you want to emulate.

[Blue_Tires]

9. sportsmanship is for sissies!

:sarcasm:

what exactly was the dispute? the story didn't say (great reporting job!)

[screembloodymurder]

11. The Olympics is being ruined by politics.

I would not compete in any judged event. The boxing is a joke.

[valerief]

12. Love it. It's drama like this that REALLY makes the Olympics great. nt

[TreasonousBastard]

13. OK, so if he really thought...

he got screwed, what's the problem with walking off in protest? Every time someone in sports does something unapproved by the sportsmorals police, usually by acting like a normal human, they get dumped on.

Does "sportsmanship" mean taking shit lying down?

[Tim4319]

14. The 1972 Men's USA Basketball Team

still have not claimed their Silver Medals, after loosing to the USSR. They were robbed too!

[Joe Fields]

23. I remember it well, and they really were screwed.

[Tim4319]

30. I was born April 3, 1972

I've seen the ending of that game about a dozen times, and screwed is an understatement!

[theboss]

37. Some of the players have provisions in their wills denying their families the right to claim them

That's awesome.

[amandabeech]

16. If you read further, it sounds like this incident was precipitated by what he preceived as a very

bad call, in an event that apparently had many controversial calls.

In other words, he was angry at being reffed.

[Dukkha]

18. Reminds me of Nancy Kerrigan's catty remark after losing to Baiul

"I don't know why they're bothering reapplying her makeup. She's only going to start crying again."

classy

[amandabeech]

36. Ah, yes. Her Nanciness.

It was over when she dissed the Mouse.

She has a figure skating show on Comcast Channel 8, which is actually quite good. It shows minor competitions and lower level skating, as well as synchronized skating, AKA rockets on ice. It's actually pretty cool!

She's turning into a decent commentator.

[Romulox]

20. Good for him. Good sportsmanship =/= "just play along with it". nt

[JBoy]

26. What a fucking baby. Suck it up, pal. Sometimes in life you don't win.

[Codeine]

29. He really did win, though.

He got reffed. That shit ain't cool.

[Name removed]

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[cherokeeprogressive]

32. There was a boxer, I think he was So. Korean, who didn't like the results of his match

He sat in the middle of the ring and they let him sit there for something like nine hours I think.

[kestrel91316]

33. Unsportsmanlike conduct.

[aikoaiko]

34. What a wussy.

[ThatsMyBarack]

40. Couple things:

1. "This will be my last match. I came here to win gold and I didn't," he said. "So I consider it a failure."

A FAILURE? :wtf: He didn't lose gold--he won the bronze!

2. Remember Athens 2004? There was this South Korean gymnast who thought HE should have won the all-around gold in men's gymanstics, but that honor went to American Paul Hamm, so the former had a hissy fit about it (I think he WON the silver medal).