This has, so far, been the most political Olympic gymnastics competition that I have witnessed in more than 40 years of following the Games. Some are characterising this as the FIG having chosen in favour of difficulty over execution. I tend to think of it as something less strategic, more contrived and more misled. It is almost as though a teen generation of gymnastics judges, let me call them the Make It Or Break It Cheerleaders, have taken over. Belligerence and venom have been mistaken for reason. A legion of teenage experts lead the opinion of professional adults who should know significantly better. The desire for measurement and assumed objectivity - the desire to satisfy the needs of those 'stattos' amongst us who want to be able to predict and justify scores - has led the sport to degrade to the lowest common denominator. If you don't believe me, just watch the floor final on Sunday - I'll eat my hat if the best wins (it's a felt beret, and will most probably choke me to death).
The most telling statement I have heard so far has come independently from several different sources - 'now that Louis Smith has only managed a silver on pommels, you can be sure that Beth Tweddle will win gold in Monday afternoon's uneven bars final'. I've no desire to be uncharitable towards Beth - she is a great bars worker and has developed her routine to include an incredible array of difficulty that may well deserve gold - but whatever happened to the idea of the best routine winning? It's come to something when lifelong fans of the sport have become so hardened and cynical by the political games played by judges that these kinds of opinions can be formed. It is hard on Tweddle, who may well deserve the gold this afternoon without implications of it as some sort of favour to the hosts.
I have closed a couple of the comments threads on this blog, partly because the argument has become circular, but also because it is simply unpleasant to read some of the personal contumely that is dressed up as argument. Opinion is necessarily varied around many of the subjects on which I write. Some of the articles are provocative. I appreciate reading a variety of opinion, but I don't appreciate it when words like 'moron' appear on my blog, and when discussions of racism replace those of artistry. The 'trolls' who cause this trouble are in a minority but their behaviour is upsetting to the majority who just want to have an interesting discussion. I thank the majority for their contributions, and hope they will continue to come here and to comment.
There are terrible double standards: elsewhere, the behaviour of McKayla Maroney on the podium goes unquestioned, while every sorrowful tear of Viktoria Komova is criticised as 'unsporting'. I just think they are both teenagers, leave them alone. It's highly unfashionable to bemoan Maroney's silver medal on vault, with a fall, yet every stutter and fall from a Russian labels the athlete a 'headcase'. It is the kind of talk you might expect from a group of particularly poisonous 12 and 13 year olds desperate for a place in the most popular clique at school, multiplied by the power of the internet which, quite unselectively, gives voice to those with the most malice and greatest talent for insult. I wonder if they would be so outspoken in person? But the media, the coaches, the gymnasts, begin to follow suit : International Gymnast comments on an apparent slight by bronze medallist Aliya Mustafina of her coach; coach John Geddert blogs about the unfairness of the 2 per country rule which saw his gymnast Jordyn Wieber ruled out of all around finals; 16 year old German, Janine Berger, puts herself through the ordeal of a tearful press statement announcing her disappointment at finishing fourth on vault.
Despite all of this fearsome noise, judges have to take responsibility for their judging at this competition. I've heard it said, in defence of the judges, that the Code ties their hands. While there are deductions specified for particular errors such as steps on landing, superior body posture and leg line do not attract a bonus. This argument blames the Code whilst characterising the judges as powerless robots with no initiative, no imagination, and no moral dimension to their work. But the Code does give a choice of whether to make the deduction at all, or whether to give a lower level of deduction. The judges do have a choice of how to implement the Code, but many of them seem pretty clueless. Russian coach Marina Nazarova has pointed out how inexperienced judges were unable to adjust to Ksenia Semenova's improvements over the course of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
An understanding of ballet training as a requirement to good gymnastic basics is lacking by many who mistake it as a personal preference for classical dance in the choreography of floor and beam routines. Most American gyms do not employ a full time choreographer to hone and polish the work of their gymnasts from an early age, before bad habits can become engrained. The culling of compulsory exercises many years ago has left the judges without a baseline by which to judge basic skills, allowing terrible unsightly gymnastics to dominate even at the top of the sport. One well qualified commentator has observed that the tie-break procedure ... where execution scores determine the finishing order if the overall score is identical - is the only time that the sport prefers execution over difficulty.
The women's sport is groaning under the overwhelming influence of poor judgement and media distortion. Russia made significant errors in the team competition and America deserved their gold there. Judges made a poor call of the all around medallists. The unexplained reduction in marking differential between USA and Russia on the bars has been instrumental in seeing America take gold in both the team and all around competitions here in London. Russia's balletic heritage is apparently counting for nothing in a battle with a legion of MIOBI Cheerleaders.
On Sunday, we will see the finals of the beam and floor exercises, the blue riband events of any gymnastics competition. In both finals, 20 year old Ksenia Afanasyeva has qualified, her beautifully performed exercises a reminder of the gymnastics of the past. Yet her start values do not measure up to the competition and her chances of winning either event - even if she avoids error - are low, if not non existent. If Afansyeva were injured, she could be replaced in the beam final by compatriot Anastasia Grishina, a gymnast of almost equal beauty, without the experience of Afanasyeva but with a potentially higher start value and, therefore, a stab at a medal. This would rob the floor final of Afanasyeva's amazing grace, most likely leaving a line up of Who Dares Wins cheerleaders (Raisman, Ferrari, Wieber) with the medals. The FIG will have the sport it wants.
Before the competition began, team captain Ksenia Afanasyeva stated : 'We will win with beauty'. Russia are the only team wholeheartedly to embrace this vision and philosophy. In the dark room that is women's artistic gymnastics, the Russian team sits in a beacon of fading light. How much longer can they prevail?
The most telling statement I have heard so far has come independently from several different sources - 'now that Louis Smith has only managed a silver on pommels, you can be sure that Beth Tweddle will win gold in Monday afternoon's uneven bars final'. I've no desire to be uncharitable towards Beth - she is a great bars worker and has developed her routine to include an incredible array of difficulty that may well deserve gold - but whatever happened to the idea of the best routine winning? It's come to something when lifelong fans of the sport have become so hardened and cynical by the political games played by judges that these kinds of opinions can be formed. It is hard on Tweddle, who may well deserve the gold this afternoon without implications of it as some sort of favour to the hosts.
I have closed a couple of the comments threads on this blog, partly because the argument has become circular, but also because it is simply unpleasant to read some of the personal contumely that is dressed up as argument. Opinion is necessarily varied around many of the subjects on which I write. Some of the articles are provocative. I appreciate reading a variety of opinion, but I don't appreciate it when words like 'moron' appear on my blog, and when discussions of racism replace those of artistry. The 'trolls' who cause this trouble are in a minority but their behaviour is upsetting to the majority who just want to have an interesting discussion. I thank the majority for their contributions, and hope they will continue to come here and to comment.
There are terrible double standards: elsewhere, the behaviour of McKayla Maroney on the podium goes unquestioned, while every sorrowful tear of Viktoria Komova is criticised as 'unsporting'. I just think they are both teenagers, leave them alone. It's highly unfashionable to bemoan Maroney's silver medal on vault, with a fall, yet every stutter and fall from a Russian labels the athlete a 'headcase'. It is the kind of talk you might expect from a group of particularly poisonous 12 and 13 year olds desperate for a place in the most popular clique at school, multiplied by the power of the internet which, quite unselectively, gives voice to those with the most malice and greatest talent for insult. I wonder if they would be so outspoken in person? But the media, the coaches, the gymnasts, begin to follow suit : International Gymnast comments on an apparent slight by bronze medallist Aliya Mustafina of her coach; coach John Geddert blogs about the unfairness of the 2 per country rule which saw his gymnast Jordyn Wieber ruled out of all around finals; 16 year old German, Janine Berger, puts herself through the ordeal of a tearful press statement announcing her disappointment at finishing fourth on vault.
Despite all of this fearsome noise, judges have to take responsibility for their judging at this competition. I've heard it said, in defence of the judges, that the Code ties their hands. While there are deductions specified for particular errors such as steps on landing, superior body posture and leg line do not attract a bonus. This argument blames the Code whilst characterising the judges as powerless robots with no initiative, no imagination, and no moral dimension to their work. But the Code does give a choice of whether to make the deduction at all, or whether to give a lower level of deduction. The judges do have a choice of how to implement the Code, but many of them seem pretty clueless. Russian coach Marina Nazarova has pointed out how inexperienced judges were unable to adjust to Ksenia Semenova's improvements over the course of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
An understanding of ballet training as a requirement to good gymnastic basics is lacking by many who mistake it as a personal preference for classical dance in the choreography of floor and beam routines. Most American gyms do not employ a full time choreographer to hone and polish the work of their gymnasts from an early age, before bad habits can become engrained. The culling of compulsory exercises many years ago has left the judges without a baseline by which to judge basic skills, allowing terrible unsightly gymnastics to dominate even at the top of the sport. One well qualified commentator has observed that the tie-break procedure ... where execution scores determine the finishing order if the overall score is identical - is the only time that the sport prefers execution over difficulty.
The women's sport is groaning under the overwhelming influence of poor judgement and media distortion. Russia made significant errors in the team competition and America deserved their gold there. Judges made a poor call of the all around medallists. The unexplained reduction in marking differential between USA and Russia on the bars has been instrumental in seeing America take gold in both the team and all around competitions here in London. Russia's balletic heritage is apparently counting for nothing in a battle with a legion of MIOBI Cheerleaders.
On Sunday, we will see the finals of the beam and floor exercises, the blue riband events of any gymnastics competition. In both finals, 20 year old Ksenia Afanasyeva has qualified, her beautifully performed exercises a reminder of the gymnastics of the past. Yet her start values do not measure up to the competition and her chances of winning either event - even if she avoids error - are low, if not non existent. If Afansyeva were injured, she could be replaced in the beam final by compatriot Anastasia Grishina, a gymnast of almost equal beauty, without the experience of Afanasyeva but with a potentially higher start value and, therefore, a stab at a medal. This would rob the floor final of Afanasyeva's amazing grace, most likely leaving a line up of Who Dares Wins cheerleaders (Raisman, Ferrari, Wieber) with the medals. The FIG will have the sport it wants.
Before the competition began, team captain Ksenia Afanasyeva stated : 'We will win with beauty'. Russia are the only team wholeheartedly to embrace this vision and philosophy. In the dark room that is women's artistic gymnastics, the Russian team sits in a beacon of fading light. How much longer can they prevail?
I have to agree that Komova will not get the UB title due to the " political correctness " or should I call it " Gymnastics correctness " as the judges will try disparage Komova and Musty in favor of Tweddle and Yao to distribute the medals evenly, and it doesn't matter what is the best routine !!
ReplyDeletedo you still feel the same after having watched the bars final now? I think for once today no one from any nation can complain about the scoring on today's bars final. I think it's safe to say that every one of the 8 were scored very accurately, receiving the fair scores (good or bad) they deserved for their work.
Deleteit made me more confident that Gabby was overscored by 0.5 on Bars in AA final
DeleteBy the way I do believe that generalizing the mistake does not make it right
what generalization were you meaning?
DeleteI originally was trying hard to stay out of the feud about Douglas vs. Komova because I didn't feel nearly as strongly as others about the bars scoring in the A/A. I felt Douglas performed a clean, high flying, stellar routine that should have been rewarded for its height. No she did not have the difficulty of Komova but what she did do was executed well.
Now I'm not so sure. I've never been a Gabby fan one bit (would have loved to see a few U.S. girls make the team that didn't, or Wieber in the A/A in place of her) but she does deserve a fair evaluation even if it doesn't come out in her favor. Today in event finals Douglas made one big mistake but she covered well. She didn't fall or stall completely, and except for a step on landing the rest of her routine was performed with pretty darn close to the same execution from the A/A. That would be there's a serious scoring disparity somewhere. While I don't know what her mistake on bars cost her exactly without a breakdown of the scores and penalties I don't think it was the huge difference that was penalized (0.8 going from a 15.7 to 14.9). That means that she was either underscored today or overscored in the A/A. And because she did perform poorly today I do think it's the later of the two and she was a bit overscored in the A/A.
Now that being said I still feel her A/A routine would have been worth perhaps a 15.5 instead of the 15.7 she received. So no Komova should not have 'guaranteed' been the winner or won by a landslide, but I think the end result should have been a much, much closer scoring margin than what it came out to be. Instead of tenths separating the two it should have resulted in more of a world's repeat with the gold going in favor of either Douglas or Komova by the slimmest of margins had scoring been spot on.
I was very happy for Mustafina today. I really don't feel anyone was worth remembering in vault finals but bars was excellent today. Sad perhaps that Komova couldn't put in a top performance but unfortunately she did make errors and Mustafina was flawless. Aside from Maroney's stuck Amanar in team finals her bars set today was the first to put a smile on my face throughout this whole competition. I'm so glad to see she pulled that last half twist of her dismount around much cleaner and stuck it to cap it off. What a beautiful routine she had.
In other news, not so much a fan of this article. I like to hear out all sides of an argument because typically it is hard to fully appreciate the other point of view when you are loyal to your opinion on the matter. It just seems this one was less than professional compared to others by this blogger. While we all secretly root for the “home team” and are embarrassed for them when they are less than sporting (ahem Maroney when she received her silver!) we should be entitled to opinion but not when that comes off a bit crude. It just seems like this one was less about discussing from an educated standpoint on the sport and more a desperate grasp to instill a sense of righteousness when an outcome was not favorable to what we want it to be.
This blog expresses a polarised viewpoint - and has attracted some valid and interesting comments representing a variety of viewpoints.
Delete… The generalization I mean when someone claims that all or some gymnasts overscored to justify his favorite gymnast’s score. So I believe generalizing the wrong doesn’t make it right.
Delete… you suggested that Gabby overscored by 0.2, as I think she overscored by 0.5 as two judges‘ panel in Qual. And team final gave her 15.2 and 15.333 respectively, she didn’t fell or make a serious or medium mistake to get that huge surge.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree there. I can't see where she would have lost a full half point. 0.2 or 0.3 perhaps but not 0.5. I can greatly see where people are asserting she didn't earn the 15.7 she was awarded but I think they are so stuck on the 'artistry' as the only means a gymnast should be awarded above a 9.0 execution score that they are forgetting high flying moves that are performed to their max should also receive great credit, as should pointed toes, legs glued together, long lines, etc. Just like everyone is pointing out how Komova's beam routines should receive higher reward for "performing to the max" on her leaps where others do not (and she should), Gabby should be rewarded for her absolute sky high release moves on bars. At worlds her D-score on bars was 6.3 and has been upgraded to a 6.5 since. She also has greatly improved on her consistency, hitting her handstands better, landing her dismount cleaner (except for the cringe worthy event finals performance here) and in Tokyo she scored just south of a 15 if I remember right. I think that extra boost should definitely award her a 15.4 maybe 15.5 when it's performed nearly flawlessly and definitely agreeable that 15.7 should not be attainable without a further boost.
DeleteI don't know as I've been one that's generalized about overscoring and no it should not be said that 'everyone' overscored or underscored but it CAN definitely be said here that gymnasts from several different nations (not just the US) have been overscored during these games. Yes Russia included. I don't feel as there have been any so drastic as 0.5 or above but it has been clearly noticeable when and where this has occurred and whether it's maybe a shaving of 0.1 scores differential or greater (0.2 to 0.4). I didn't watch full performances from gymnasts in the countries not in contention for the gold but I can think of specific performances from Russia, US and Great Britain that would fall under that category of 'benefiting from judging'.
As to the author, yes I do understand where this blog is centered on promoting the success of Russian gymnasts and focusing on lively discussions about where they have excelled or faltered. Obviously if I was not interested in learning about the Russian team I wouldn't waste team reading your blogs. I hold interest in the US team, Russian team and Romanian team. Many of your articles are excellent, providing discussion for why gymnasts were scored incorrectly, information on the training progress of the Russian team, etc. Promoting a one sided viewpoint is one thing but doing so by bashing another team and creating such a deep view that scoring is the result of a contrived evil put in place it really doesn't lead for very positive discussion. I think the debate on scoring is excellent rivalry and great for any competitive sport, but stating that one individual was better than another because of A,B,C is one thing....saying that individual is better because everyone is out to get you, because one way of performing a routine is the only way and others are simply terrible athletes is not constructive.
... in Tokoyo 9 months ago the best E-score Gabby achieved 8.466 in Qual with less D-score and in Olympics 9.133 with much difficult routine 6.6 ( not 6.5 as you mentioned ) !! it takes a years for a gymnast to improve his execution by 0.733 as long as he didn’t fell or make a serious or medium mistakes ( it took Alyia 13 month to clean her E-score on bars when she hadn’t anything to do except Bars, not in just TWO DAYS like what happened to Gabby when she EARNED 8.6 E-score on Team Final then GRANTED 9.133 in AA final.
Delete...I did a little research and found that the last two worlds in Rotterdam and Tokoyo the judges DID NOT award ANY gymnast on Bars more than 9.033 E-score, and it was for Komova in Qual. In Tokoyo, so it doen’t make any sense that Gabby gets 9.133 when a great Bars workers like Komova ( the Bars champion 2011 ) or Mustafina ( the Olympic Bars champion ) or Tweddle ( the Bars champion 2010 ) or He Kexin, Yao… ect didn’t get that E-score in TWO YEARS!!! but suddenly they managed to give her 9.133 just to close the gap between her and Komova on Bars
Finally as you said we will have to agree to disagree
I want musty to get a medal on UB, not long to go. Im sure she will as she was awesome in the AA finals
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with this article ! It is what was always in my mind but i couldn't explain it better than you did : ) Thanks
ReplyDeleteI guess I wouldn't call what you're describing as political. Remember the 1980 games in Moscow? That was politics! But the media- print, tv, and social- seemed to have changed the way the world works. I've wondered if there isn't pressure put on the FIG to nudge results toward certain outcomes because of potential revenue for the sport(?) That is, favor a certain style that just so happens to be the style of the country in which viewership is the greatest (and associated advertising $$ also the highest) Just a guess, but I think the almighty dollar (or Euro) is playing more of a role.
ReplyDeleteI tend to wonder the same. I don't feel there was such dramatically misguided judging as everyone is screaming about (although yes I think there were several places were BOTH the US and Russia benefited from some squeaky extra tenths) but some of the results are just odd. I know it "can" happen that two gymnasts score the same but the exact same scores that Mustafina and Raisman ended on were sort of odd. For Raisman to score the exact score she needed to match Mustafina on floor in the A/A was a bit fishy. I personally thought she deserved a 15.2 something instead of 15.1 something but interesting how it ended up being exactly a 15.133. Maybe a tie like that would create an outcry and more active viewers?
Delete