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The games are complete and the medal count is final. Thanks to the nice people at the Athens Olympic Games Blog who tracked and updated the medal count. For more Olympic information, visit the following sites: International Olympic Committee Official Athens 2004 site NBC television coverage (USA) BBC coverage (UK) See you in Torino in 2006.

I confess that I have watched less of the Athens games than probably any other Olympics since 1976. It isn't that I had no interest; I just had so many other things to do. Still, I am not deterred from throwing out a few quick observations:

• The Good: The women's marathon (excitement, medal contention to the last mile, and good sportswomanship), U.S. women's soccer (here's to the Fab 5), Iraqi Men's soccer (no medal, but no torture when they get home either), men's tennis final (now THAT was good, hard competition).
• The Bad: U.S. men's basketball (such big egos don't deserve to win), beach volleyball (worth watching only for the small bathing suits), cry-baby athletes (life isn't fair, get used to it), U.S. television coverage (7 networks of coverage, but most had only a couple hours a day).
• The Ugly: Athens 2004 mascots (what ARE they, exactly?), interference in the men's marathon (Brazilian victim holds his head high), Mediterranean weather in August (if there is a hell, it must be like that), that damned Iranian wrestler (see this post).

I would have liked to do more blogging about the history of politics in the Olympics. I would have liked to watch the opening and closing ceremonies, both of which I missed while being out with friends. I would have liked to see more live coverage, which I admit would have been difficult given the time difference.

Next stop: winter 2006 in Torino, Italy (which I hope to attend), and summer 2008 in Beijing, China (which I hope will not take place in venues built with the slave labor of imprisoned political dissidents).

In light of judging controversies in the men's gymnastics competition at the Athens Olympics, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has asked American gold medalist Paul Hamm to surrender his title in the all-around competition to Korean Yang Tae-young.

To make a long story short, some of the judges made an unwarranted deduction from Yang's score. South Korea failed to properly contest the scores, so the results stood. Without the erroneous deduction, Yang would have won the gold medal.

But MSNBC.com columnist Mike Celizic, interviewed this afternoon on television by Lester Holt, said that he reviewed the tapes of Yang's routine and found errors for which the gymnast was not penalized. With no instant replay or a review system similar to that used by on-field officials in the National Football League, he contended, it just isn't practical to be second-guessing judges' decisions.

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has refused a request that a duplicate gold be issued, something that was done in Salt Lake City in 2002 in the wake of a corruption scandal among judges in the pairs figure skating competition. No corruption has been alleged in Athens.

The IOC will not be handing out extra medals. We've said 'No' to the German NOC [National Olympic Committee, which contested equestrian results] and 'No' to the Korean NOC. We’ll continue to say 'no'.

You can’t stop NOCs for asking for more medals, but the IOC will say 'no'. We will not give medals for so-called 'humanitarian' or 'emotional' reasons.

Meanwhile, USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) have stood firm in their support of Hamm. USOC chairman Peter Ueberroth blasted the FIG move, saying that it was unfair for the governing body of international gymnastics to "[deflect] their own problem and their own incompetence to an athlete." Ueberroth, who headed the organizing committee for the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles and later served as Commissioner of Major League Baseball, said an athlete should not be punished retroactively because of a judging mistake.

I don't know of any comparison in any sport anywhere where you crown an athlete, crown a team and then say, 'Oh, that was a mistake. Would you fix this for us?'

I couldn't have said it better myself. For my part, the real injustice in the gymastics competition wasn't to Yang, who was awarded a bronze medal in the all-around, but to Russian Alexei Nemov, who was denied a medal of any color in the men's high bar event because two judges issued scores so far below that of the rest of the panel that the crowd booed for a full 10 minutes. Ultimately, whenever subjective officiating is employed, even with the detailed scoring guidelines used in gymnastics, there will be mistakes that cannot all be corrected.

Even the most casual Olympic watchers know that the United States and its athletes have not been immune from using the quadrennial games to make political statements. Most of those statements were against another country, but it was different at the summer games in Mexico City in 1968, when American track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos used their medal ceremony to express their displeasure with ongoing racism in the United States.

The 1960's were a time of racial and social turmoil in the United States, and 1968 was especially volatile with the confluence of the escalation of the Vietnam war, President Lyndon Johnson's consequent departure from the presidential race, and the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. With divergent approaches to the race issue being advocated by activist groups like the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam, the more militant activities eschewed by Dr. King and abandoned by the late Malcolm X became more visible as unrest built.

It was in this context that gold medal sprinter Smith and bronze medalist Carlos chose to use their position aboard the medal platform to shun the U.S. national anthem by holding up their gloved clenched fists in the recognizable black power salute. The photo of that moment is among the most recognizable in Olympic history, and the moment among the games' most political.

If the first post-WWII Olympics to take place in Germany were so notorious, what about the last pre-WWII Olympics? Those took place in Berlin in 1936 and would be the last games for 12 years, the '40 and '44 games being cancelled on account of the war. (The only other Olympics to be cancelled due to war were the 1916 games, also scheduled for Berlin. Those cancellations were probably less political acts than practical responses to the state of the world at those times.)

The Germany of 1936 was defined by the tenets of the National Socialist (Nazi) party and their goal of a master race. In the time between the awarding of the summer games to Berlin in 1931 and the actual event in 1936, Adolf Hitler rose to power and decided to use the games to promote the Nazi ideology.

It was surely not a part of Hitler's plan that one of the most successful athletes to come out of the Berlin Olympics was the black American track star, Jesse Owens, whose accomplishments were political only to the extent that they served so perfectly to embarass Hitler.

The unfortunate incident involving the Iranian athlete who refused to compete against an Israeli is, unfortunately, not the first time anti-Israel or anti-Semitic sentiment has infiltrated the Olympics. The most famous—and most deadly—incident occurred 32 years ago in Munich, West Germany:

[I]n the early morning of 5 September [1972], eight Palestinian terrorists broke into the Olympic Village, killed two members of the Israeli team and took nine more hostage. In an ensuing battle, all nine Israeli hostages were killed, as were five of the terrorists and one policeman. The Olympics were suspended and a memorial service was held in the main stadium. In defiance of the terrorists, the International Olympic Committee ordered the competitions to resume after a pause of 34 hours.

The Munich games were, ironically, the first held in Germany since World War II and the Holocaust. Perhaps that connection was what motivated the terrorists to select that setting for the execution of their plan.

For a more information, see Palestinefacts.org's detailed recounting of the tragedy and the response thereto, and Sports Illustrated's 2002 retrospective.

Iran's judo champion, Arash Miresmaeili, who carried his nation's flag in the Olympic opening ceremonies last week, has been disqualified from competition in Athens. One report says that he failed to make his weight class in a weigh-in on Sunday, but an Iranian news report makes no mention of the weight issue, citing instead an entirely different reason:

"I refused to play against an Israeli rival to sympathize with the oppressed Palestinian people," IRNA [Islamic Republic News Agency] quoted Miresmaili as saying.

Miresmaili refused to play Israeli opponent Ehud Vaks in the 66-kilogram category.

Even more shocking than the athlete's actions are the reactions from official at the highest levels of Iran's government and sports program:

Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, the conservative speaker of Iran's parliament, congratulated Miresmaili on his "brave decision."

Ali Kafashian, deputy head of Iran's sports organization, suggested awarding Miresmaili a special prize because of his refusal.

Meanwhile, there is no word from the Iranian athlete about why he bothered to go to the Olympics at all when he obviously had no intention of upholding the spirit of the Olympic Truce:

The tradition of the "Truce" or "Ekecheiria" was established in ancient Greece in the 9th century BC by the signature of a treaty between three kings. During the Truce period, the athletes, artists and their families, as well as ordinary pilgrims, could travel in total safety to participate in or attend the Olympic Games and return afterwards to their respective countries.

Taking into account the global political reality in which sport and the Olympic Games exist, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to revive the ancient concept of the Olympic Truce with the view to protecting, as far as possible, the interests of the athletes and sport in general, and to contribute to searching for peaceful and diplomatic solutions to the conflicts around the world.

In light of the willingness of Israeli athletes to compete against athletes from countries whose governments and people want to wipe Israel from the map and kill Jews, this Iranian looks like a very small man indeed.

Plans are proceeding to develop an anthrax vaccine for widespread use:

The Departments of Defense (DoD) and Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced that the military will support a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) effort to create a new medication against anthrax. This new medication, anthrax immune globulin (AIG), is an antibody-based medication and could become a critical medical countermeasure for the nation in case of an anthrax attack.

My first reaction to this press release was sadness that we even have to think about bioterror attacks. My second reaction was relief that the possibility isn't being ignored or swept under the rug.

Today is the 33rd anniversary of the founding of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. I recently joined this organization made up of an interesting assortment of people from many backgrounds and professions, all of whom share a somewhat deeper passion for baseball than the average fan. Members include Sabermetrician Bill James as well as sportswriters and employees of baseball clubs.

Running to fill the Massachusetts state senate seat being vacated by Sheriff candidate Guy Glodis is Republican Roberta Blute, who is launching a write-in campaign to get on the November ballot, according to the Worcester Telegram and Gazette ($ registration required).

I know Robi somewhat, know her in-laws even better, and campaigned for her husband Peter when he ran for and served in the U.S. Congress several years ago. But I don't think I can vote for her. Why? According to the T&G article:

Ms. Blute supports Gov. Mitt Romney's call for a rollback in the state income tax to 5 percent, backs the death penalty and gun owners' rights and opposes gay marriage but supports same-sex civil unions.

Both Ms. Blute and [Democratic opponent Edward] Augustus support abortion rights.

As much as I don't want to vote for a pro-abortion candidate, at least Mr. Augustus opposes the death penalty and supports gay marriage. I like Robi's stand on the income tax rollback, but money is not as important as human life and human rights.

The Washington Post is reporting (free registration required) that Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) disclosed information about classified intelligence intercepts in interviews with Fox News and CNN correspondents on June 19, 2002, according to federal investigators. The Fox correspondent refrained from reporting the information; the CNN reporter was not as sensible. Now, it turns out that the Justice Department has decided not to pursue criminal charges against Shelby, instead turning over the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee.

In theory, congressional oversight of intelligence activities and national security information is a great idea. Unfettered power in such areas leads inevitably to tyranny. Likewise, careless public release of such information leads to a breakdown in public safety and security. Congressional oversight seeks to balance these two seemingly contradictory concerns. But what happens when those among the people's representatives who are charged with such oversight don't know enough to keep their mouths shut?

What shouldn't happen is an ethics investigation. My father, who for years worked for defense contractors and managed projects of the most secretive kind, is subject to penalties up to and including death by firing squad for disclosing classified information. I am not suggesting that Sen. Shelby be shot on the West Lawn. But there is a reason for such threats: disclosure of secret information carries potentially lethal results for Americans here and abroad. Shelby ought to be held criminally responsible instead of being given a slap on the wrist by his buddies in the Senate.

For those of you living in Worcester County, Massachusetts, I urge you to vote for Guy Glodis for Sheriff in the state primary electin on Tuesday, September 14.

I have known Guy for several years, both personally and professionally. He is a stand-up, no-nonsese guy (no pun intended) who would be a breath of fresh air in the Sheriff's department. He promises to be a vast improvement over incumbent Mike Flynn, whose greatest claim to fame is his record of nepotism and patronage at the Worcester County Jail and House of Corrections.

Meet Guy at a free reception on Friday, August 13, 2004 from 7-9 PM at Maironis Park, 52 South Quinsigamond Avenue, Shrewsbury. (Click here for a map, or here for driving directions.)

This is great to see—American Muslims banding together to actively promote reform within their religion and oppose terrorism. It's nice to see people doing what their religious leaders won't. (Hat tip to Citizen Smash.)