1. AP photographer Rob Carr, for turning in this picture of Nastia Luikin.



2. Sports Illustrated for using it on its Web site as the main photo to go with its story about Luikin's gold medal.

Anyone who saw the gym finals last night knows that:

A) This was not a compelling part of the story.

B) This moment on the bars was not where the competition was won or lost.

Not. Cool.

i wouldn't have selected this image as the dominant photo to tell the story but i absolutely do not have a problem with rob carr turning in this image, nor with SI for running it. every olympics i look forward to the incredible sports photography that emerges when you combine the world's best athletes with the world's best photojournalists. that said, i think that somewhere between that phenomenal opening ceremony, phelps' umpteenth medal and all the flag waving, there's a tendency to lose sight of just basic human fragility. i think that is what carr and SI are trying to remind us of. journalists who subtly question the whole rah rah propaganda coup are doing us all a service. i just don't see that the olympics (especially when they're in CHINA!) are a time when journalists should put away all skepticism to portray some half-truth of perfection. my 2 cents.

Nastia Luikin was robbed last night. She so should've won gold in the uneven bars competition. What was with that one Australian judge? And why the new, stupid scoring system? AND there's no way that Chinese gymnast who "beat" Luikin to win gold is 16 years old. No way.

Yeah, I thought Alicia Sacramone and Nastia Liukin were robbed, too, CB. But I can't blame Cheng Fei or He Kexin or any of the other Chinese gymnasts, for that matter. I can't say Fei or Kexin stole anything from anybody.
Blame the judges for the scores. Blame somebody else for letting little kids compete (allegedly).
By the way, check out what Liukin said about the bars: "Scoring is scoring, and that's our sport. That's what we've been going through our whole lives and we just have to accept that." (Boston Globe.)
That is one impressive young woman. It would have been really easy for her to say, "That was some BS, flat out." But she didn't.
-G

I find it funny that you can have ties in other events and share the medals, but here they have to develop some lame ass tie-breaking formula.