[FOUNTAIN]Misjudged again

The highlight of the ancient Olympic Games was the chariot race. In modern times, the marathon has always been the Olympics finale. The chariot race with four horses racing each other made the ancient Greek and Roman spectators go wild. Nero Caesar, the Roman Emperor, won two gold medals in the Olympics. He entered a music competition that was not even part of the games and won. He participated in the chariot race with 10 horses, but failed to complete the race. However, the judges crowned him with wreath saying, “He would have definitely won the race if he hadn’t fallen down.” Nero Caesar rewarded the judges with Roman citizenship and ample reward.
The worst misjudgment in the history of the World Cup was in the semifinal in 1982. Frence’s Patrick Battiston got a one-on-one chance with German goalkeeper Harald Schumacher. Schumacher ingeniously assaulted Battiston with his knee and elbow. Battiston lost consciousness and some teeth and was carried out on a stretcher. Schumacher was not charged with a yellow or red card. After shootouts, West Germany won the game but Schumacher was disgraced with the nickname “nasty Schumacher.”
The most famous misjudgment is the “Hand of God” goal incident. Argentina’s Maradona defeated England by pushing in a goal with his hands. As the dispute for misjudgment became more serious, England’s team coach stepped up. He said, “Misjudgments are also part of the game. Argentina is qualified to win the game,” calming down the situation.
According to the science magazine “Nature,” among the 200 offsides called, 40 of them turned out to be misjudged. Ever since, FIFA set up several cameras in the field. This time, FIFA positioned additional referees in the blind zone and gave them radios to use between the linesmen and the referee. However, the referees have not been given the authority to look at a slow motion video clip of the offsides at the moment of the foul.
Because of the many misjudgments in the match between Korea and Switzerland, the Korean people are very angry.
FIFA has denied Internet access of the Koreans because of the irritated Koreans requesting a rematch.
Korea lost the gold medal in gymnastics in the Athens Olympics and has suffered from misjudgments in every important game.
It hurts, but there is no other way. We can just comfort ourselves remembering that the last of the misjudgments were always miserable. We don’t know even how Nero Caesar died, after he was chased by the rebel army. The chariot race judges were beheaded.

by Lee Chul-ho

The writer is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.