Is the Olympic judging for gymnastics in Beijing as off as the announcers are making it seem?

Question

As thousands around the world are doing, I've been watching the Olympics and I've noticed that there has been a lot of controversy over the gymnastic judging. The announcers, who were world class gymnasts themselves, have been saying things like "too high" or "too low" but so far there haven't been any protests.

The announcers seem to know what their talking about; they've familiarized themselves with the new rules and scoring system and, again, they have their own personal experiences. And I can't tell one way from another so I'm turning to you guys:

So, is the scoring really off?

Also...PLEASE, DON'T BASE YOUR ANSWERS OFF PERSONAL FEELINGS! If you answer please have the knowledge to back it up. I'm not trying to be rude but I don't want to spark anything since this is a bit of a touchy subject, especially because the the Olympics are not yet over.

Answer 1

No, it is following the FIG Code of points.

Many people get emotional when it clearly doesn't go the way they want it to, but in general, The scores are correct.

The A score is changing everything, and this should be fixed (as in set scores on the apparatus) to stop the confusion.

If you go have a look at all the results and ignore the A score and total score and only look at the B score, you would see they are being correctly penalised for any mistakes.

Basically the "B Score" is the "10.0 System" that we are used to.

Answer 2

yes. it always occurs that the things that judged have the option to take off a point they take it when its anyone but the chinese. i think they are deffinatly bias.

Answer 3

I agree.  You do tend to believe that the announcers know what they're talking about, but at the same time you know that the judges were picked because they are extremely knowledgeable about the sport.  A good example of that conflict came during the women's vault final.  Most people would probably say (and the announcers actually did) that the girl from China, who fell, should not have received a medal, but clearly the judges didn't agree.

Answer 4

After thirty years in law enforcement, everything to me is in the details.  Case in point, Chinese gymnast lands on her knees, does not keep her hands together on the table of the vault, and is turned on the entry.  What happens, the judges are bias and she wins.  The others including the Americans are cheated.  The beam competition is another example.  The chinese gymnast fell, had three balance checks, and a very high score.  American gymnast fell, had only one balance check and a harder routine.  Chinese win.  Does not take someone with a gymnastics background to see that there is a lot of bias in the judging.  Why aren't the judges introduced at the beginning of the event, their faces shown to the world, their scoring and how they came up with their scores, and an average score given each country by judge displayed?  Another case in point, when the Chinese gymnasts come up to compete, they are given the green light almost immediately.  The Americans and others are forced to wait.  In football this is called icing the competition.  All of the above were observed on the NBC broadcasts.  The only "fair" events are the non-judged events like swimming, running, etc.  I saw where in the trap shooting one Chinese team member was given credit for a target he did not hit.  Trap shooting is simple.  You hit the target or you don't.  I sent the ICO a letter about the poor judging and told them that if this was the best they could do, why don't they just hand out the medals at the opening for those who have been determine that they are going to win regardless of how others perform.

Answer 5

Some of the points the American commentators made seemed valid though. For one, in an effort to keep the judging unbiased, judges from nations other than the United States, China, Russia... etc, are used so that a judge doesn't help out his or her home country. However, that often means judges are plucked from nations without strong gymnastic programs, which ultimately could bring the competency of the judges into question. When Nastia won the silver medal for the uneven bars for example, the tie break was decided by the Polish, New Zealand and Brazilian judges' deductions for He, and the Australian, New Zealand and Bulgarian's judge's deductions for Nastia. Besides the fact that Nastia's father has claimed Australian judges have consistently scored Nastia questionably in the past - and in this case the Australian judge's scores for Nastia and He had the most radical difference in deductions - several of the other nations don't have gymnastics programs that compare to those of the competitor's home nations. Also, when I was watching the balance beam routines in the women's all around, Shawn Johnson received the same execution score as a Chinese athlete who had several more obvious balance checks, which the commentators and I were perplexed by. I'm not saying the judging is flawed, and those are just a couple of incidents that come to mind, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility. Keep in mind that I'm not a gymnast and I could have jumbled some of those facts.

Answer 6

Since many of us don't see this event, or most of the Olympic events, very often, understanding the judging/scoring can be difficult at best. And now, with the more confusing new system, we need to multiply something, throw out the high and the low, and do this in the all too brief moment that the judge's scores are on screen. This system is very confusing, at least for the casual fan, and that is who the majority of the viewers are, in this country at least, casual fans. However, with specific regard to the judging in question, the gymnast slipped and fell, and didn't appear to be penalized at all. During other competitions last night, competitors slipped, fell, touched down, whatever, and all those competitors were penalized. So, I feel there was 'something afoot' in the scoring. It may be a simple matter of the Chinese athlete being allowed to 'get away' with something due to her reputation. 'She's great, a champ, she earned a break.' Although to me, that sort of thinking is backward. If Kobe 'walks' he should be called, not given a break. He is a superstar, and thus, if anything, more should be asked of him, not less. Superstars don't need breaks. They are, by definition, super. The same should apply in this case, no breaks because of your 'rep'. The best policy is to make the call without considering who the contestant is.If you fall, you fall, and they seem to have specific, very specific, deductions for that (and everything else).

Answer 7

There have been 100 questions on this tonight, but thank you (sincerely) for an intelligently worded question instead of a rant. I really don't see how random, mostly European judges would be biased for North Korean and China and against the US. Bela Karolyi obviously feels strongly, and the judging didn't seem to reflect what I saw, but Bela is definitely biased and I'm a fan but not an expert.