More taekwondo-
Posted on LJ-
The British guy's on (from Manchester) - just did a beautiful inner crescent to the Mexican's head, and you could see the Mexican's helmet quiver with the impace. Which should have meant two points.
But instead the Chinese judge gave him a half-point warning! WTF!? Is this some fucking political voting shit like at Eurovision. It's a fucking disgrace! Oh look, they've exchanged kicks to the body but only the Mexican got a point! The Brit gets him the head again but the corner judges are apparently asleep!
I've never seen such blatant political scoring since, er... Well, the 2004 Athens Olympics, actually.
Bleh.
Germany Vs Afghanistan now. The commentator promises us lots of double and triple kicks.
So far they've hugged once.
OK, this is weird scoring (I should mention that three out of the four judges have to simultaneously press the same button for a point to be registered - it's very prone to failure) - they've both let rip at last and landed kicks and the judges aren't giving either of them anything!
Doubly weird as they're doing mutually-destructive flying kicks now. Good spinning too looks like one helicopter kick (not actually advisable in competition). Best fight so far tonight, though the Afghan's tendency to make a raised fist gesture every time he thinks he got a point (usually the judges don't agree) is getting annoying - makes me want the German to win just for that.
The commentators are now going on about the battle for the back seat on the bus, rather than the match. Are they on crack or something?
And the Afghan won, despite the German kicking him all over the hall in the last round. Ludicrous.
Benin Vs Thailand now - a pretty exciting match but I keep finding my eyes drawn to the statuesque and leggy blonde ref! And being annoyed by the commentators' increasingly humourous pronunciation of the Benin fighter's name (which they make sound more and more as "Obi-Jobby")
Then I got called back to bed. Just got up and its the semi finals for the women - better bouts now, though they're still holding back and being too cautious.
Afghan vs Spaniard and they're good, but both annoying. The Afghan's still prancing about every time he thinks he's scored, and the Spaniard is still obviously faking injuries to lure him into a false sense of security.
If you want to know how daft the scoring system is - the Afghan did a flying kick that knocked the Spaniard clean out of the ring, and the corner judges still didn't react quick enough for it to register! He won anyway in the end, and deservedly so.
Finally for today:
What a fucking disgrace!
Dominican Republic Vs Mexico, and the local crowd (with no home fighter to cheer) are chanting for Mexico all through the first round. Now, it goes to sudden death, and the Dominican guy is going all acrobatic, aggressive and vicious. Helicopter kicks across the floor, jumping, flying kicks, you name it. The Mexican does sod all. Still no points given from the daft electronic scoring system, so it goes to a committee decision by the corner judges and ref.
Now, the taekwondo way is that spirit is the guiding factor here- the braver, more aggressive and more technically proficient fighter wins.
So, do they give it to the guy who's having a go, landing hits, and going all out, as even the commentators (the more sensible of whom is the Scottish national coach) note? Or do they give it to the bloke who's country a few thousand locals in the hall were chanting five minutes ago?
Take a wild guess.
I hate to be a "Monday morning quarterback" but this really brings the tone down after the excellent fair victory of the Chinese girl in the womens' 49kg Gold immediately previous.
They really need to have some sort of sensor in the body armour that registers points, rather than rely on three out of four observers being awake and all having exactly the same level of hand-eye co-ordination and exactly the same reaction times.
I didn't say that. I championed the weighting system!
etc etc. 
