Benefits for the Host City

After spending approximately $17 billion on infrastructures, Olympic venues and other operational costs, London got paid off in a different way. Olympic referees showed their gratitude for the host city in a barely disguised way. In the just-concluded 10m diving final, Daley, a British nominal diving genius, was offered an opportunity to dive again after his first failure. Daley made his way to the podium after unprecedented seven dives with the help of referees and British audiences.

Daley is not the only British athlete who benefited from referees' favoritism. During Women's Double Sculls Final on Aug 3rd, British athletes got permission from referees to suspend the competition when they found their boat broken in the midway. The game was resumed after they fixed the boat. French athletes failed to keep their leading position in the game, and lost to Britons. Similarly, in the Men's Team Cycling, the British team took advantage of the rules with supports from referees. Philip Hindes fell shortly after taking off on purpose (as he admitted later in an interview) so that he could get a second chance and restarted the game. Britons again beat French and received a gold medal. In spite of Hinder' confession of deliberate crash, the IOC supported Britain and declared no reason to question the result, which looked particularly ironic after eight badminton players disqualified from London Olympics for passive play one day ago.

This was not the first time that the host city of Olympics taste sweetness from referee's unprofessionalism. Hitler did similar thing during Berlin Olympics in 1936, where Jewish and black athletes were strongly discriminated against and German athletes won most of the gold medals. Londoners did not seem to advocate for fair-play, and they cheered for the British medals even if they were donated by referees rather than earned by players. In comparison to audiences in Athens who hissed referees after Nemov's marvelous performance on horizontal bar and insisted revising the intentionally underrated grade, audiences in London are simply too desperate for victory.

$17 billion is not small money. If the IOC was willing to accept this budget, at least it could improve the expenditure structure a little bit by hiring more professional referees. Too many appeals in London Olympics already raised doubts on the correctness of referees' decisions, and the lack of unanimous criteria exacerbated the distrust. A temporary basketball stadium without restrooms is annoying enough, but not as bad as unprofessional referees who brutally defy athletes' efforts and make the results a big joke.