Gymnastics... unfair?

Question

Last night, I was watching the vault in women's gymnastics. Shawn Johnson hit both of her vaults... maybe a little hop, but it was good. Then, Korea did her routine and fell both times. She received a higher score than Shawn. Pretty unfair, in my mind.

No, I'm not defending USA. Germany was excellent. She landed both of her vaults... and walked away with a silver. So... what do you you all think?

Answer 1

You're assuming every vault has the same difficulty.

Competitors receive two scores from separate judging panels -- one an open-ended mark measuring the difficulty of the routine (A-score), the other a mark out of 10 for how well it was executed (B-score).  The panels are composed of judges from different countries, and they rotate for each event.

Even though the Korean gymnast fell to her knees when the American gymnast landed both vaults, both of her vaults were much harder than the American's, making her A-score higher. The A and B scores are added together, and the scores for the two vaults are averaged.

Answer 2

it was alicia sacramone that got cheated on her vault, not shawn. but I definitely agree, and not because of her nationality. she had 2 decent vaults, and both the gold medalist and the bronze medalist had bad landings. one landing on her knees. come on now. I think the german girl should have got the gold and alicia the bronze.

Answer 3

It was Alicia Sacramone who came in 4th on Vault.  And I do feel bad for her.  But the scoring was fair.  Cheng Fei did get penalized for her fall.  She just had a higher start value, so she was able to beat Alicia even with the fall:

I do feel bad for Alicia. But the scoring was fair. As you'll see below, Cheng was deducted quite on her 2nd vault (she lost nearly a point and a half). But her difficulty was enough to keep her ahead of Alicia.

Cheng Fei's two vaults:

First Vault:

Difficulty - 6.50

Execution - 9.575

Total - 16.075

Second Vault:

Difficulty - 6.50

Execution - 8.550

Total - 15.050

Average of Cheng Fei's two vaults: 15.562

-----------------------------

Alicia's two vaults:

First Vault:

Difficulty - 6.30

Execution - 9.450

Total - 15.750

Second Vault

Difficulty - 5.80

Execution - 9.525

Total - 15.325

Average of Alicia's two vaults: 15.537

Answer 4

what i noticed is, they give higher scores for Chinese than with Americans or other players even if the Chinese have more mistakes than Americans or other nationalities.

just today, one Chinese and one American tied with their scores. However, China got the GOLD and America got the SILVER. they have a fishy rule about having a tie.

Chinese scores are so OVER RATED.

it is true that the judges are not from China but who knows if there is something going on inside.

just look at the judges. they argue a lot.

i may not be a judge or an expert but i'm just expressing what is obvious while watching TV. even the nbc hosts have the same thought.

Answer 5

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

Answer 6

You forgot the matter of different start values based on difficulty...

Answer 7

Yeah yeah yeah... It's unfair whenever usa didn't get the gold medal.

Answer 8

Someone got out with a little extra cash from the sides...seriously.

Answer 9

In these games and the new scoring system, there is proof now of the bribery and unfairness when it comes to judging. I think you are talking about Alicia.  And yes, the Korean girl do not deserve her score as well and the gold but most obviously Cheng Fei of China did not deserve that medal especially with the new scoring system.

For example:

Let's see, everyone has a perfect number in which they can do based on a level of difficulty.  It's obvious how unfair especially in Cheng Fei's vault the judging was because they did not take all the deductions  the exercise deserved.  The mistakes were many and big and that alone was 1.6 in deductions. You add in all the little things judges seemed to find wrong in every other gymnast and believe me, Cheng Fei's was far from being decent and is why she landed on her knees.

So really the deduction should have been 1.6+.  I wish someone would sit down with every judge and see how they scored it. Put them on the spot.   I don't know why U.S. is not protesting at all.  Maybe they are waiting until the end because they are afraid of China retaliating?

I totally agree with you, why should someone get a score they so obviously and mathematically as hard evidence,  don't deserve?

I don't care which country they're from but it should be about the athlete's performance and not the country they're from.

Germany was awesome and so was USA. They were the only two on the top four that landed on their feet in bounds.  They both should have done a higher difficulty level as I'm sure especially Sacramone from US can do and just hoped to land on her knees and may have won a medal.

Answer 10

Yawn        this again

Answer 11

those judges were paid off by the chinesse goverment. thats not fair that fei cheng came in irst place even though she fell on her kness

Answer 12

bribing

http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

Answer 13

does no one understand the many meanings of the word biased

Answer 14

The commentators said that the teams competing in the event cannot have a judge from their country scoring. Therefore, you have a bunch of less experienced judges from random countries like South Africa deciding who wins (instead of gymnastic powerhouse countries), and this could somewhat explain why some of the scores seem off. Bribery? Maybe. Cheating by various countries? Nothing new. Fair? Probably not. Hopefully they reform the system in some way so gymnasts can all be judged unbiasedly.

Answer 15

Let's switch places...US fell and got bronze...would you still whine???

It definitely has something to do with politics...but also the start value of the routine is something...

Answer 16

Who knows better... a panel of experienced judges from all around the world or you?

Answer 17

So gymnastics judging is rigged...what else is new.

Seriously, they need to trash the new scoring system. It's even worse than the old one.

Answer 18

it all comes down to the degree of difficulty they choose for each roation, i have seen a lot of falls and mistakes, but the higher the difficulty the better chance they have of getting a decent score... mistake or not coz it gives them a bit of lieway