The recent publication of proposed amendments to the Code of Points on the International Gymnast website surprisingly produced only one public comment. I say surprising because the fan forum there is continually bombarded with negative criticisms of the Code of Points, and I had expected there to be some fierce discussions. Instead, however, little more than silence and blank space prevailed.
Perhaps it was because of the sheer volume of reading involved. Around 200 pages of text were produced about the women's Code alone. The Code itself is a document of some 192 pages of densely packed text, tables and symbols, and to make things worse it is supplemented by a misleadingly named 'Helpdesk' of some 58 pages, which is supposed to be a condensed, easy-to-use guide, but which in fact adds new ideas to the original core Code as well as possible new variations in interpretation. All in the name of 'simplification'. Mapping the proposed amendments to the original Code and harmonising the various versions must be a mammoth task for some poor editor. I hope he or she will be well paid and highly skilled.
When FIG President Bruno Grandi recently referred to the Code as a 'time bomb' he highlighted two key points needing attention: (i) the need to 'simplify, not complicate' the Code and (ii) the need to acknowledge the value of subjective judgement. This stands against a backdrop of general cynicism amongst gymnastics fans and occasionally, officials, about the nature of the Code and the influence it has on the artistic direction of the sport and on the potential for injuries.
The problems that Grandi addresses are experienced not only by FIG and the judges, but by the gymnasts and coaches themselves. The recent transformation of the sport has been the emphasis of difficulty-laden exercises introduced in response to an open-ended scoring system that gives significant advantage to those brave enough to include high level, multiple difficulties in each routine. Compared to the previous system of marking routines out of ten, the value of the whole exercise as a consummate performance embracing both sport and art has been devalued. The abolition of compulsory exercises some years ago also forced the inclusion of very specific special requirements into the optional exercises. Cumulatively, I would argue that these measures have limited the scope for creativity and individuality in the exercises.
The FIG (2009: iii) explains that the purpose of the Code of Points is to
‘standardize the judging rules in order to possibly ensure the most objective evaluation of the exercises, thereby ensuring the identification of the best gymnast in any competition.’
The use of such words as 'evaluation', 'objective' and 'best' reveals underlying assumptions of gymnastics as a measurable phenomenon that can be independently calculated without reference to cultural or perceptual bias. These assumptions deny the fundamentally subjective aspects of true judgement as a social cognition process (Plessner and Haar, 2006) where cultural perceptions affect assessment. They have informed rules which have effectively denied the existence of the intangible artistic value of the sport. Now, when we watch a gymnastics competition we hear of 'start values', 'execution' and 'deductions' but relatively little is made of whole routines. In fact, the word 'routine' appears only once in the whole of the Code of Points. Something valuable has disappeared.
To give them their credit, the FIG has been responding to what it has considered to be public demand to make judging fair and transparent. Calls from the IOC to harmonise rules between the technical sports such as diving and more subjective sports such as artistic gymnastics have hardly helped them to keep a clear perspective. Bias and subjectivity are recognised as inherent in the judgement of artistic sports; judges in general do mark athletes from their own countries more generously (Zitzewitz, 2006; Emerson et al, 2009). Different sports have adopted different strategies to try to manage this bias, and artistic gymnastics has adopted what it considers to be an objective marking system. Over a period of time this has stripped the sport of its subjective values, with little left to judge. There has been a silent, probably unintended, revolution which has effected a paradigm shift. Gymnastics is now principally a technical sport. Those gymnasts who provide the added value of artistry do so at their own risk for very little return.
The FIG attempts to value artistry in the same way as it does the technical elements. Amongst the proposed amendments to the Code there is a section headed 'artistry'. This document comprises a 42 page Powerpoint presentation of statistics and observations relating to the evaluation of floor and beam exercises. There is an attempt to define what artistry is, breaking the idea down into component parts of measurable constructs. The idea of artistry as a native quality of gymnastics throughout all four apparatus is ignored. 'Expression' has been reduced to visual focus and showmanship on the floor alone. I cannot find a single 'big idea' proposal that might mend our currently prevailing fractured approach to evaluating gymnastics and that would restore the importance of artistry and judgement to all around gymnastics.
Once upon a time, gymnastics had a distinct cultural identity that embraced ballet, circus, and something indefinable, special and unique. The sport led the Code and enactment of the Code was reliant on the subjective interpretations and ethical actions of individual judges. Occasionally, this did not work very well but generally sport saved the day. Today, however, the Code has become gymnastics and gymnastics has become frightened of itself. The systematic decodification of subjective terminology such as artistry, harmony, originality and virtuosity has resulted in an over-detailed, excessively prescriptive Code which many gymnasts now use as a shopping list to compose the assemblages of difficulties they call exercises. The creativity has gone out of the sport, routines are no longer judged, single original moves of great complexity are becoming increasingly rare. The value of skills are assessed and deductions are taken. Where once we had Risk, Originality, Virtuosity, now we have Endurance, Precision and Power. They might as well use computers to work out the scores. All judgement has vanished from gymnastics judging.
Grandi’s statement implicitly acknowledges the influence that the Code can have on the direction of the sport. We must therefore conclude that whoever writes the Code has control of the sport (this is supported by theory arguing the importance of cultural capital to the delineation of what is art, and what is not (see for example Bourdieu, 1979, 2010)). The identity of gymnastics as sport or art has long been contested. Currently we are seeing the worst effects of a philosophy that embraces the technical with little concern for the artistic. Platchias (2003) debates the relative values of the aesthetic versus the artistic in sport, arguing that the tangible, competitive output of sport is balanced by the unconscious aesthetic product that in turn renders sport to art. His focus on team sports did not embrace gymnastics, but I would conclude that the deliberately visual nature of our sport is something that surely emphasises the importance of the aesthetic and therefore of judgement.
This is not the only interpretation available, however, meaning that bias is inherent in all gymnastics’ scoring and embedded in the Code of Points from which the scoring is derived. A problem is that this bias, and the underlying assumptions, are rarely acknowledged and the underlying power struggle remains unstated and focussed on minor detail. The implications of far reaching changes remain relatively unchallenged and undebated. The use of words such as ‘objective’ and ‘standard’ make us believe that the Code is essentially fair when in fact it is composed according to a particular World View that may not be in accordance with ours. Gymnasts and coaches seem to follow the Code quietly, without question; its word is accepted as Law. If it’s objective, it must be right, mustn’t it? But who owns gymnastics’ cultural capital, and what are their interests? Whose version of objective are we allowed to consider?
I fail to see that the ponderous collation of individual detailed amendments to an already inpenetrable document is likely to simplify the Code of Points or the work of judges. Nor do I consider reductionist approaches to the interpretation of artistry to be likely to re-emphasise the value of subjective assessment to the judgement of gymnastics. We need some Big Ideas.
References
Bourdieu, P (2010) Distinction: A Social Critic of the Judgement of Taste London: Routledge - translation from the original French Language version (1979) La Distinction: Critique Sociale du Jugement Paris: Editions de Minuit (other English language editions are available)
Emerson, J W, Seltzer, M and Lin, D (2009) 'Assessing Judging Bias: An Example from the 2000 Olympic Games' The American Statistician 63:2 pp 124-131
Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) (2009) 2009 Code of Points - Women's Artistic Gymnastics Lausanne: FIG
Platchias, D (2003) 'Sport is Art' European Journal of Sport Science Vol 3 Issue 4 pp 1-18
Plessner, H and Haar, T (2006) 'Sports Performance judgements from a social cognitive perspective' Psychology of Sport and Exercise 7 (2006) pp 555-575
Zitzewitz, E (2006) 'Nationalism in Winter Sports Judging and its Lessons for Organizational Decision Making' Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 15:1 pp 67-99
Further reading
From this blog :
From elsewhere:
'Dear FIG' The Couch Gymnast, 21st August 2011
'Why did Valeri use DTY' Gymnastics Coaching Blog, 21st August 2011
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