Michael Anti calls them "bonehead" moves: missteps or miscalculations that can make an athlete feel like his own worst enemy. It happened Sunday to Anti, who blew his chance at gold in a rifle event after firing too many shots from the kneeling position. Fellow American Matt Emmons did him one better -- or worse -- by shooting at the wrong target. They've got plenty of company in Athens, where a run of athletes' goofs and judges' gaffes -- not to mention the doping scandals du jour -- is giving the Olympics plenty of blunders and bloopers. Get a grip, Russia's Svetlana Khorkina must be thinking after she developed an ill-timed case of butterfingers and dropped off the uneven bars Sunday night. The bars are her specialty, and she was favoured to win one last gold in the event before retiring. Instead, the dethroned queen of gymnastics finished dead last and stalked off into the night. US gymnast Courtney Kupets, who won the bronze, called Khorkina's bumble "a silly mistake". "But these things happen in gymnastics, and she's still a great gymnast," she said. Emmons, of Browns Mills, NJ concedes he was clueless in the 50-metre three-position rifle final -- an event he's won the gold in before. He had a commanding lead before cross-firing into a competitor's target, dropping instantly into eighth place and lifting Jia Zhanbo of China to the gold. Anti, of Winterville, NC took the silver after missing his own shot at gold by firing too many times while kneeling. "We both made bonehead mistakes today," Anti said. "We both kind of gave the gold medal away." As far as Paul Hamm is concerned, it's the judges who blew it -- and badly. America's gymnastics sensation won the coveted all-around gold, but the International Gymnastics Federation acknowledged Saturday that the judges made a scoring error. The federation suspended three judges but said it can't change the results, prompting South Korea to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in hopes of getting a duplicate gold for bronze medalist Yang Tae-young. USA Gymnastics likened the mistake to a bad call in football. Hamm played down the fuss as "a slight distraction," but it seems to have thrown him off his game: He failed to medal in either of his events Sunday, finishing fifth on floor and sixth on pommel horse. Then there's the hapless Joszef Hidasi. The Hungarian fencing referee was expelled from the Olympics and suspended for two years Sunday after making several errors during the gold-medal match in men's team foil. Hidasi made mistakes in six scoring decisions -- all favouring Italy, which beat China 45-42 on Saturday to win the gold medal -- said International Fencing Federation spokesman Jochen Faerber. The federation's President, Rene Roch, decried the calls as "heavy and against the good reputation of our sport". Hidasi "was a very good referee" in the individual portion of the Olympic tournament, Faerber said. "But this was so obvious now with these six mistakes" that action had to be taken. But at these Games, the worst of the dolts are on a growing list of athletes pumped up on steroids, hormones and other banned substances. Greek weightlifter Leonidas Sampanis, who swore on his children that he was clean, was stripped of his bronze medal in the 137-pound (62kg) category Sunday after tests showed twice the acceptable amount of testosterone. Eight other weightlifters have failed drug tests in Athens, according to the International Olympic Committee. Russian shot putter Irina Korzhanenko tested positive for steroids, international and Russian officials said Sunday. Her case was particularly distressing because last week she became the first woman to win a gold medal at Ancient Olympia, the hallowed site where the Olympics were born in 776 BC. Korzhanenko, 30, will face a hearing before an IOC disciplinary commission. If found guilty, she would be disqualified and expelled from the Games by the IOC executive board. Such affairs have scandalised the sports world, but World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound said he believes the rapid-fire removal of cheaters will increase public confidence in the authenticity of the competitions being held around Greece. "It shows that you can't go to Ancient Olympia and screw around and expect to get away with it," he said.
