Japan downs USA for softball gold. Wait, what?

I know this is coming pretty late relative to when the event occurred, but my internet was down for the better part of two days, and I just can't let this go without a comment.

Anyhow, the people that run the Olympic softball tournament managed to ensure that I will not be in favor of the game returning to the Olympics in 2016 - it, along with baseball, has been dropped for 2012. I mean, the reality is that I wouldn't have cared that much anyhow, but the stupidity of their tournament design has moved me to the point of active opposition.

You may have heard that Japan upset the heavily favored USA team in the gold medal game, becoming the first team other than the US to win the gold, and ending a 20+ game Olympic winning streak for the Americans. And that's all well and good, but you may not have seen how that transpired.

There were 8 teams in the softball tournament this year, and this tournament started off with a round-robin. The top 4 teams advanced to the medal round. Now, if you know me, you know I'm generally not thrilled with having playoffs to determine a champion when you've already had a full round-robin. However, I understand the "need" to have a defined gold medal game, so I accept these kind of setups in the Olympics.

That is, of course, assuming the medal round setup isn't mind boggling in it's stupidity. Unlike a traditional 4 team medal round, which would play 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs 3, with the winners playing for gold and the losers playing for bronze, in softball, it's 1 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 4. The winner of 3 vs. 4 plays the loser of 1 vs. 2 in the bronze medal game. Except it's not the bronze medal game, because the bronze medal goes to the loser, and the winner advances to the gold medal game against the winner of 1 vs. 2.

So, as it played out this year, the US (1) played Japan (2), and beat them. Japan then beat Australia in the "bronze medal" game, and returned to play the US in the gold medal game. Now, as convoluted as I find that setup, I wouldn't really have a problem with it, IF Japan would have had to beat the US twice to win gold. They didn't, the winner of that single game was the gold medalist. Huh?

How does that make any sense at all? Look at it this way: this was a 4 team tournament that was single elimination for 3 teams, and double elimination for 1, Japan. Japan's one victory in the gold medal game was apparently enough to overpower the US's preliminary victory, which gave them the 1 seed to begin with, and their earlier medal round loss. How can you declare a champion in a tournament where each participating team has 1, and only 1, loss? And this setup was not some random experiment, it's been used in (at least, I couldn't find records on '96) 3 of the 4 Olympics that softball has been played.

So, to you, softball, I say good-bye, and good riddance, at least until you find someone who can design a medal round tournament that doesn't suck. Seriously, it's not that hard.