Just as I was beginning to really enjoy the Olympics again – just when Canadian medallists Simon Whitfield and Priscilla Lopes-Schliep had me feeling almost as enthusiastic about the Games as I was in the old TV room with mom and dad during my childhood — this scandalous taekwondo nonsense surfaces in Beijing.

The fiasco hit me hard, almost as hard as one of those body blows that supposedly scores points for taekwondoers but mysteriously didn’t for B.C.’s Ivett Gonda in her match against Sweden’s Hanna Zajc.

A medal hopeful entering the Games, Gonda received no points from the judges and lost. And then her obfuscated coach appealed the judges’ decision. And then I remembered something I loathed about the Olympics.

Judges. And judging.

They were right up there alongside my other Olympic pet peeves – steroid use, political propoganda, stupid television coverage and corrupt governing bodies.

But as Whitfield soared to silver in the triathlon and as Lopes-Schliep leaped to bronze in the 100-metre hurdles – and while the Beijing Games seemed devoid of anything on my hate list — I actually started to like watching the Olympics again, in my new HDTV room, with my kids.

And then the taekwondo judges went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like screwing over Ivett Gonda.

Jerks.

The appeal was rejected, of course, and Gonda was officially eliminated. “I was ripped off,” she lamented.

It’s a claim Olympians make far too often. In 2002, remember, Canadian figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were deprived of their due rewards by judges at the Winter Olympics until public pressure prompted a rare revision and they garnered gold. Gonda wasn’t as lucky, and she’s peeved.

Frankly, I don’t know if Gonda was shortchanged or not because I don’t know taekowondo from tiemyshoes. But I certainly know judging is subjective and consequently leaves itself open to second-guessing, conspiracy allegations and appeals. Which make a mockery of the Olympics.

It is time, simply, to abolish so-called sports that include judging. If a sport’s results aren’t obvious – if you haven’t scored more goals or more points than your opponents or you haven’t beaten them to the finish line – dump it.

The nitwits who run the Olympics are dropping softball and baseball. Dumb, eh? These are sports whose winners are easily discernible. You score more runs than the other team and you win, plain and simple.

But taekwondo? Who knows what’s behind judges’ decisions? Ditto for boxing. And fencing, and trampoline, and gymnastics. And figure skating.

Dump them all. Let me enjoy the Olympics again.

Marty York is Metro’s national sports columnist as well as an
instructor at the College of Sports Media in Toronto. You can also read
his columns at www.freemyteam.com.

He
can be heard each Wednesday night on Vancouver radio station CKNW with
Sportstalk host Dan Russell. Contact Marty at marty.york@metronews.ca