Chinese referees bone up on Olympic English skills

 Controversial decisions

Hawk-Eye officiating

If the video referee had been introduced to fencing four years ago at the 2004 Athens Games, the result of the men's team foil may have been different.

In the gold-medal match between China and Italy, Hungarian referee Joszef Hidasi made mistakes in six scoring decisions -- all in favor of Italy. He was replaced at the end of the match by Polish ref Piotr Kielpikowski and finally expelled from the Olympics and suspended for two years.

But it was too late for China. The 2000 Olympic silver medalists surrendered the title to Italy, 45-42. The controversial decision stood.

The Chinese trio -- Wang Haibin, Ye Chong and Dong Zhaozhi -- had also just barely lost to France at the 2000 Sydney Games, 45-44.

Dong Zhaozhi of China walks away as Salvatore Sanzo of Italy celebrates winning the gold medal in the men's fencing team foil gold medal match on August 21, 2004 during the 2004 Athens Games. [Agencies]

After such a close decision, the team decided to train for another four years so the three could wrap up their sporting careers with an Olympic gold medal. The referee's unfair decision in Athens left them devastated.

Fencing, of course, wasn't the only sport troubled by judging mistakes at the last Olympics. Who could forget the 10 minutes of overbearing boos from spectators during the men's high bar finals that led to an unprecedented scoring change?

Not satisfying with the score given to legendary Russian gymnast Alexei Nemov, who earned a combined 12 medals in Atlanta and Sydney, the reaction from the fans stalled the competition for 20 minutes and Nemov's overall score changed before everyone's eyes, from 9.725 to 9.762, after two judges -- one from Malaysia and the other from Canada -- increased their original marks.

Nemov finished fifth, but afterward he said he "would like to thank all these people for what they did".

In yet another gymnastics judging mishap, this time in the men's all-around competition, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) suspended three judges for making errors while scoring the parallel bars routine for South Korea's Yang Tae-young, errors that ended up costing him the all-around gold medal, which ultimately went to American Paul Hamm. Yang ended up with the bronze. But, as in the fencing case, the decision still stands.

Luckily, those mistakes may not repeat at the 2008 Beijing Games.