One second. (2012 London Olympics: The Injustice Against Koreans Day1-3)
I may be speaking behalf of many South Koreans in this but, to be completely frank, these past three days for S.Korea has been just one injustice after another. Of course, I'm talking about the Olympics 2012. Starting with Park Tae-Won's alleged "false start". No one, and I mean NO ONE, thought that he had a false start. Apparently he did a little twitch before diving off the platform, but other than that he jumped off it at the same time as all the other swimmers. Only after the race it was found out that he had been DQ'd which quite honestly shocked everyone. Now this plays a huge role for two things: Canada and Park-Taewon's mental state. Because of Park's DSQ, the Canadians swimmer was able to advance to the final 400m. However, after a long protest from Park's committee, the judges reinstated Park into the Finals which means the Canadian swimmer wont even have a chance at a medal-which his journey ended there. When the finals started, it seemed as if Park was gonna win, but ultimately Sun Yang won. The end result for this, I could handle, and so could many other Koreans, because he had two more races to redeem himself. Now this was only the first day of the injustice against Korea. The second was Men's Judo. A classic rivalry between Japan and Korea seemed to be an intense fight. The ending result, Korea won! That's the truth... for a short while. After the decision was made, the olympic judge called upon the three judges/refs who made the final decision saying that the Japanese won. He persuaded them by revealing some moves the Japanese did. So after a while of deliberation, the judges reversed the decision making the Japanese guy the victor. This was utmost madness. How can you change the ending results by one persons opinion, who didn't watch the match close up on different angles and perspectives? Obviously, once again this infuriated Koreans, but not just them, the referees/judges who did that match were also infuriated because they clearly thought and knew the Korean won. Heck, even the Japanese guy said after the match,"I shouldn't have won". So only one guy's decision was the final decision, which made little to no sense to me. So was the Olympic judge saying the three judge's opinions don't matter? So what happened at the end of all this chaos? Well, the three judges who were mad and frustrated by the outcome of this match decided to quit reffing/judging. The Japanese guy got bronze but didn't seem to ecstatic about winning it (knowing that he shouldn't have the chance to go to the semifinals). And left the Koreans in utter madness an frustration. Day 3: Women's Fencing This seemed to be the biggest robbery of a gold medal opportunity in the Olympics History. So what happened? To summarize this short, it was Germany vs Korea. It was tied 5-5 and all the Korean needed was a tie in order to get on to the next round. Everything was tied up 5-5 all the way to the last 3 seconds, this is when it started to get a bit fishy. At the last second 0:01s, the timer started and stopped. 3 TIMES. This gave the German 3 swings at the Korean. Does that even make sense to you? Can you swing/jab a sword 3 times in a second? That's nearly impossible. So finally the timer hit zero.... BUT WAIT there's more. For some idiotic reason, the timer/referee decided, no it wasn't over yet...we have one more second to go! At this point both the fencer and her coach started to complain that this should have been over a while ago, but of course they completely ignored them and continued the match with one second remaining. That one second. That one second. One second. This is probably what the Korean fencer thought when she was struck, in that extra one second added by the timekeeper. Because of that one extra second that shouldn't have even been added, the Korean's 4 years of training, hopes, dreams were all robbed from her in one second. That one second will most likely haunt her for the rest of her life. Because of that one second, everything she's ever done amounts to nothing. One. Damn. Second. This is what our nation's representatives have faced these past couple of days. And I for one, am infuriated, frustrated, in shock, and most of all developed a hatred for these Olympic games. Korea, is no U.S. what priority or power do we have against these kinds of injustices? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This is why our athletes are being crushed by the Olympic association. This is the injustice that has fallen upon Korea. And I for one, don't think this is all just bad luck. This is a purpose: to stop Korea in becoming a powerhouse. I don't think anyone can stop China obviously, they're pretty much leading the world's economy after the U.S. but Korea, so much hatred against my country. Our goal for 10/10 seems to be impossible if this keeps going on, however. I know our athletes can do this. We've been pushed around by the big leagues all of our lives, we've all been encountered int he situation where it seems unfair and not right. But, even with that, Korea will still fun success. That's the beauty of my country. And this is why I'll represent Korea till my time comes. Our country: Korea will succeed in the 2012 Olympics.