Congratulations Michael! It's good that you won:
The naked eye said he lost. The naked eye said the bid to win eight gold medals had stopped in a stunning upset at the hands of Cavic -- a previously anonymous Californian swimming for Serbia, and doing a splendid impersonation of Buster Douglas in a Speedo. The naked eye said the most captivating Olympic story line since the Miracle on Ice had been scuttled.
Do you believe in heartbreak?
No.
Believe in The Closer, the guy who now has won the gold in this event twice, in back-to-back Olympics, by a combined five-hundredths of a second. Believe in Phelps. Don't ask how he does it, because sometimes there are no rational explanations. Just believe. [...]
"I thought Cavic won," fumed Serbian journalist Dejan Stevovic of Sportski Zurnal. "It was obvious."
"But he doesn't have $50 million in sponsors, like that guy," grumbled another Serb.
A world record was set for fastest hatching of a conspiracy theory. The greedy Americans were winning again, and cheating to make sure.
Never mind that there was no conceivable way to cook the timing of a bang-bang finish that displays instant results -- people wanted to believe the race was fixed. Or at least that the touch pads were faulty.
So the Serbs filed a written protest with FINA, the governing body of swimming. The Omega timing system had the same times on both its standard and backup apparatus. Referee Ben Ekumbo of Kenya then reviewed super-slow-motion replays of the finish and rejected the protest.
Perhaps if Cavic had competed for the country that welcomed his parents from communist oppression - you know the country he was born in...
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