The Games Are No Place for Sour Grapes

Re “After Crash Landing, American Gymnast Soars to Historic Gold,” (Aug. 19): After Paul Hamm’s amazing comeback in the men’s all-round gymnastic competition, I find it sad to read about the poor sportsmanship displayed by Ioan Suciu of the Romanian team. He was quoted as saying, “The only thing I can say is that the USA got something more than it deserved.” He was there and he knew that after Hamm’s falter on vault it was anyone’s competition to win or lose. Hamm, with nothing to lose, was in 12th place and decided to pull out all the stops. It paid off.

Does Suciu have a right to be disappointed? Yes. But that does not give him the right to display poor sportsmanship. He and any other athletes that make such comments need to take their sour-grapes wine and drink it someplace else, because it has no place at the Olympic Games.

Barbara Karrick

Chino