In final judgment, eliminate gymnastics from Olympics
I hate to admit this, because over the past week I've really enjoyed watching the gymnastics competitions, but the article above is probably right. You couldn't watch the way the judging in these events worked and not question how this could be called a sport. On the biggest stage in the world, the judges elbowed out the competitors on an almost daily basis. First there were the altered start values for the high bar routines of two American men, which led to an ugly fall from the bar for one of them that knocked the Americans out of the top spot and knocked him out of the next rotation. Then the same judges who had stolen tenths from the Americans pre-emptively on the high bar took them quietly away from a South Korean on parallel bars, making Paul Hamm's all-around gold medal feel more like a cheap piece of tinfoil-covered chocolate hanging around his neck. Then they gave Svetlana Khorkina an excuse to question their judging by conferring for what seemed like twenty minutes before announcing any of her scores--as if she needed a reason to pout. And as if they hadn't caused enough problems, on the final night the judges were at it again, giving Alexei Nemov a ridiculously low score for a high bar routine that was a revelation of all that high bar could be, then raising it ever-so-slightly when the crowd refused to sit down and shut up.
And those are just the problems I gleaned from home over the course of a week. As Josh Belzman points out in the article, the fact that the athletes themselves don't know who will win or lose until the judges inform them is telling. A rational observer--say, their coach--should be able to tell a gymnast the moment they step off the apparatus what score they should expect. Not a wide range--the score. If it's an objective sport, as it purports to be, a routine with a start value of 9.9 that featured perfect execution except right there should have a corresponding final score, not a range from 9.5 to 9.8, and, by the way, if there's a tie, the guy whose score caused the most disagreement among the judges gets the medal. (That's what happened to poor Morgan Hamm on high bar. He tied for third and got nothing, a fact most newspaper and TV coverage has ignored because they can't explain it. Here's the explanation: more of the judges gave the other guy a higher score--but because they tied, that means more of the judges also gave the other guy a lower score to arrive at the averahe score he was awarded. The judges all agreed on the quality of Morgan's performance, though, so he gets to stare at twin brother Paul's silver medal, also the result of a tiebreaker.)
All of this is crazy talk. Sure, football games occasionally get decided on an abberant holding penalty or pass interference call, but you expect that over time it all works out, the referees do their best, and the better team wins. A runner might get called out at second when the replay shows he's safe, or the umpire might call a ball strike three. But again, over time there's an expectation that the better team will emerge with the victory. The same is true for basketball, hockey, running, swimming--all the things we think of when we think of sports. But there's no "over time" in gymnastics--the Olympics are the main event, and the judges aren't just there to make sure the athletes follow the rules: they're deciding, actively, who wins and who loses. If there's absolutely no transparency behind how those decisions are made, then Belzman is right: this is not an Olympic sport we're watching, it's just a circus with prizes.
1 comment:
First, there was a 9.9 on the vault. But a 10? Seems like they don't do that anymore.
Of course I want to continue to see gymnastics during the Olympics, just like you do. Along with swimming and diving and track, gymnastics is one of the things that I really enjoy watching. But I think you're giving the judges more credit than they deserve. You're telling me in one breath that they screwed up both a .2 deduction and a .1 start value alteration ON THE SAME ROUTINE and in another you're saying I should trust that they know better than I do. I'm sorry, but I don't buy it, especially in a sport where a tenth of a point separates first from last in some cases. Hamm and Cassina bobbled their high bar landings and got gold and silver with far less difficulty than Nemov had in a routine where his big sin was taking a step--and all of their scores were sandwiched between 9.762 and 9.812. No one who watched those three routines, plus the two that tied for third, would have put Nemov last out of the five--no one but the people who judged them. The judging system has no accountability and has, as I said earlier, detracted from the sport by taking the focus off the athletes. If gymnastics is to continue as a medal sport at the Olympics, it should revamp the judging system so the rationale behind a score can be understood. Some guy saying "That one was prettier--I can't say why" isn't the basis for a sport. You brought up diving, but if you watched you'll note that the scores were almost always in line with what commentators and the audience expected. They have a system and they follow it. It's not apparent to me that gymnastics does the same thing.
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