How come all other gymnist can fall and jump out of bounds and mess shit up and still higher scores then the American girls?

Obviously, that is not true since the Americans finished one and two in the all around. Let’s not be homers.

No. They finished one and two despite that.

Everyone always thinks they’re being cheated. The only beef we might have is that the Chinese women’s gymnastics team is being allowed to keep their gold despite the fact it’s been proven they’ve violated the minimum age rule.

GA Astrochuck!

Looks like I missed that Astrochuck. When/where/how/why did they prove that?

@ astrochuck I am wondering the same thing as Tantigirl

tantigirl and redgirl: on another question and answer, kevbo replied with a website that had definite proof (link to the huffington post) of what the chinese did to cover up the gymnasts’ age. it had writing in english and chinese from chinese newspapers from one or two years ago, about this certain gymnast, and that she was 13, which would make her 14 now. it was very interesting.

I agree with simone, the scoring in both the all-around and vault finals were questionable. The host on NBC, Bela Karoyali (the one who talks with the funny accent), was almost in tears after viewing the scores for the vault finals. The bronze medalists from China fell after her 2nd landing and the gold medalist from Korean was out of bounds on both of her vaults. Although their start values were a bit higher than Alicia Scaramone (USA. Their executions were terrible compared to her small hops. I know a millions times less about gymanstics than Karoyali but I could still recognize that there was a injustice in the scoring. Even in the all-around, the scores were awfully inconsistent. The point of scoring is to weed out the best athlete in a sport that has no diffinite scoring system like basketball or football. I don’t believe there was a conspiracy involving the judges but rather issues arising from having such diverse judges. The judges are from different countries, each with personal views of what is a deduction and what isn’t. The judges probably had more disagreements with the scores themselves than with anyone questioning the results.

Bela Karolyi is kinda biased, he and his his wife, Martha Karolyi, have both coached the US team, and Martha is currently the US team director. I’m not surprised he was almost in tears, he has a vested interest.

@jca – I’ve seen those articles, and I’ve also seen articles where it was said that the people who wrote those articles didn’t contact any of the chinese gymnastics team officials. It is hard to know what the true story actually is.

A possible reason that I recently heard on NBC is that there is a rule which prevents judges from participating if their country of origin matches that of the gymnast. So, a Chinese judge cannot input a score if a Chinese gymnast is performing. Well, that creates room for inconsistentancy in the scoring, since some of the replacement judges lack adequate skills or fail to pocess the same keenness as their predecessor. Judges from countries such as South Africa, do not have the same views as lets say a powerhouse judge from China or Russia. These countries (China/Russia) hold much higher standards than other lesser known nations, further increasing the desparity of submitted scores.

I think it has to do with competency. 4 or 5 of the judges come from countries that have never even produced medals in the sport. The announcer calling the mistakes, who was a gymnast himself, pointed out what was wrong on both. It was just wrong.

@Bri L, I agree completely. No offense but a judge from South Africa has no business scoring at sport’s greatest stage. When was the last time a South African competed in gymnastics at the Olympics, let alone win a medal. Its almost impossible to remove biases due the simple fact the athletes represent a country at the Olympics, not just themselves. Everyone reigns from a specific country, the judges aren’t guilty for representing their nation like the athletes. The only way it solve this is to get a judge from outerspace or one that has no country of origin, both of which are near impossible.

I think what they need to do is establish a certain level of history, knowledge and competency with the sport. Maybe even have been a competitor. Judged at international levels before. Perhaps taken part in assisting at previous olympics.

I’m not an expert on the matter but I’ve listen to and watched enough NBC coverage to deduce that the sport lacks a concert scoring system. The perfect 10 is a phenomenon that no longer exists because the system is has changed drastically since Mary Lou earned hers.

On the side, another flaw was how a tiebreaker is determined. Its a odd and complex process which sometimes fails to award the best gymnast (why couldnt China and America have shared gold at the uneven bar finals?)

@Bri_L – I think you’ll find that the judges are required to undergo examination in order to judge at this level.

@ Tatntigirl – I am sure they do but there is a difference between experience and technical knowledge. I just question if they have enough of both. A person can easily take a series of tests but fail under the pressure of the event, the crowd and the moment. That is why I think experience would help.