Gold Medalist and Commentators Obliterate Beijing Judges After Controversial Scoring
With the eyes of the world turned toward Beijing, there were sure to be some controversial moments arising from these Olympic Winter Games. This is, after all, the “Genocide Olympics”, in which we are all tuning in to “celebrate” a nation that is actively involved in ongoing ethnic cleansing while warning the good people competing not to speak out against the atrocities…lest they wish to find themselves in some CCP gulag themselves.
But under that heavy cloud of misplaced respect, there have been numerous controversies within the games themselves, including reports of referee bias toward China, inhumane treatment of athletes, and another unsurprising Russian doping scandal.
The latest kerfuffle comes to us from the men’s snowboard halfpipe competition, where blatantly poor scoring standards drew the ire of the athletes and the commentators alike.
Despite winning gold in the men’s snowboard halfpipe at the Beijing Olympics, Japan’s Ayumu Hirano is calling for robust change to the sport’s judging system.
Hirano climbed the top of the podium with an incredible score of 96 on his third of three runs in the finals. However, many thought that the 23-year-old had done enough with his enthralling second run of the competition. NBC’s Todd Richards blasted the judges for awarding Hirano’s run a disappointing score of 91.75, stating that they “just grenaded all their credibility.”
Video of the comment was soon making the rounds online.
The snowboard analyst just absolutely crushed the judges
"As far as I'm concerned the judges just grenaded all of their credibility" pic.twitter.com/IZ4vpgbdcH
— Tim Murray (@1TimMurray) February 11, 2022
Understandably, Hirano echoed Richards’s consternated remarks, going so far as to say that athletes are “putting their lives on the line,” therefore the judging has to be better.
“We want to have sound standards and I think we should look into exactly what the judges were looking at,” the 23-year-old Hirano said. “For the athletes, they’re putting their lives on the line, they’re giving it their all. So for the riders, I think some steps need to be taken to address this issue regarding the judges.”
Commentator Richards, upon witnessing Hirano’s eventual gold medal, began his praise of the athlete by stating “Justice.”.