Chinese Gymnastics Fixing

[Guest Sandi]

Okay, So for example, last night they were doing the beam individuals... The chinese totally fell, yet still got bronze.

And a few nights ago, she landed on her knees on the vault. And scored higher than the russian that landed near perfectly.

 

So what do you think?

[spunky_munky_gal]

The little I know about gymnastics is enough to know I can't really comment on how it is judged - I simply don't have the knowledge to assess whether certain judgements are fair.

 

Having said that, the discussion I've seen (involving a former Olympic judge) gave the impression that the judging was pretty much in line with international standards. I guess problems arise when the public, most of whom aren't qualified to judge, see what they think is a good vault, but might be less difficult, or contain serious errors that we don't notice vs a vault with noticeable errors, but that is more difficult or otherwise technically very good.

 

I am a dressage rider, and often to outsiders (and sometimes insiders!) the judging doesn't seem fair. That's why they have so many judges in those more subjective disciplines.

 

The other issue is, while I'm sure it's heartbreaking to work so hard and just miss out on your goal, but true sportsmanship means copping the judgement sweet and assessing your own performance to see where improvements can be made. I also think it's a fantastic achievement for anyone to even be competing at that level, so they shouldn't be disappointed!

[antiaircraft]

I'm not personally qualified to judge on this kind of thing, so I'm inclined to believe that there are some nuances to the sport which I'm not aware of as an observer. I wonder if we have a gymnastics expert on the forums who can help explain everything to us?

[torridity]

I'm not a gymnastics expert, but my family and I are huge sports enthusiasts so I'll offer a little of my opinion.

 

Gymnastics scores are dictated by two things - the difficulty of the routine and the execution of the routine. The 'A' score, which you can see on the boards near contestants, tells you how difficult a routine is. When contestants are judged, they are given marks based on execution (how well they did) by a number of judges from different countries (I think maybe five). The lowest and higest scores are disregarded, and the average of the rest is multiplied by the difficulty factor to get the final score. So, it is possible for a gymnast who has fallen to do better than a gymnast who has not if the difficulty of their routine is higher. Chinese gymansts are known for the difficulty of their routines, so it is probable that the one who fell and received a bronze had a very difficult routine. Also, different falls have different mandated deductions - so what you think is a bad fall could actually have a minimal effect on score.

 

I think the Chinese gymnasts and the entire Chinese Olympic team has been truly amazing so far, and I doubt they would stoop to fixing any of the competitions.

 

EDIT: Sorry, I've confused gymnastics with diving - for the execution part of the score, it is simply one mark compiled by the different judges, called the 'B' score, and it is added to the 'A' score to get the final score.

[Patch]

ok i did gymnastics for some time. at the international level you are not allowed to have judges that are from the same country as any of the gymnasts. so because all of the good gymnastic countries were present the judges came form countries that dont have a good gymnastic programs and there for are not the best. also the judges dont have to take off points and when they do they have the option of desciding how much they do.

[spunky_munky_gal]

ok i did gymnastics for some time. at the international level you are not allowed to have judges that are from the same country as any of the gymnasts. so because all of the good gymnastic countries were present the judges came form countries that dont have a good gymnastic programs and there for are not the best. also the judges dont have to take off points and when they do they have the option of desciding how much they do.

 

That sounds a bit odd. So they predict who will perform well and choose judges based on a prediction? And if that's the case, then how would the chinese government 'fix' the results if none of the judges are from china? I think it's unlikely that any country would do that - too likely they would be found out and exposed to international scorn.

 

Whenever a judge or a referee is criticised, it is usually because someone's unhappy with their own result. Judges do a difficult job, with little or no thanks most of the time. But there are always people willing to criticise what they do. That's not to say judges are above criticism, but just that we weren't there, we don't know the reasoning that went into the decision. We also have the benefit of instant replays, slow motion etc. Judges don't - they have to make a decision based on what they see.

[Furry Curry Level 3]

i understand that the chinese did have higher starting scores but it was all quite ridiculous. i don't think i saw one perfect performance from the chinese when it came to the balance beam or the floor routine. they were awful and were constantly doing balance checks and, yes, even falling. i dont agree with the scores one bit, but the U.S. managed a few golds and silvers anyway.

[Awesome_Paul]

I watched abit of the Olympics, but falling off, doesn't mean it will be rubbish. They performed quite well.

 

They look at the performance in general, difficulty, landing etc. The US did a alright performance, but they were no where as difficult as the Chinese.

[Patch]

the judges tend to be coaches or delagets from the FIG the international gymnastics federation( i dont the acranum i just know roughly what it means) and they come from all over the world to help out. i have to agree with Super Paul the chinese just outperformed us plain and simple

[Macabre]

Okay, first off I am by no means a gymnastics expert, but I was in gymnastics for seven years so I'm pretty familiar with the sport.

 

I do not think it was fixed by the Chinese, but that some of the judges were at least somewhat biased in the vault competition.

 

The woman from the Chinese team routine was harder, but she had an error on take off (by not keeping her shoulders straight, this is pretty bad) and falling on the landing.

The woman from the American team had an easier routine, but with no errors, except for a small step on the landing.

 

On to the judging, the scoring system is fairly new so that was a cause of problems in and of itself.

Then when you throw in judges who do not have a lot of experiance and come from countries with small gymnastics program, the problems become bigger.

 

I wholeheartedly believe that the woman from the American team deserved the bronze medal.

[ScottDog]

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[Faded]

Uh, I think it's about the level of difficulty. The Chinese tend to do more difficult things, which increases the chance of falling, but at the same time the level of difficulty boasts the score. If she didn't fall, I would have thought she'd got a gold.

[Splarne]

my first thought about that scoring was "fixing"... but then i thought...and listened to the "difficulty" explanation, but they weren't that much more difficult to allow for a fall (or in some cases landing out of bounds)... then i remembered... didn't the US get the same kind of favorable judging in Atlanta (96) and LA (84)? i've just resigned it all to homecourt advantage. no french-russian conspiracy this time (was that ice skating?)