Text 19710, 87 rader
Skriven 2008-08-16 12:01:44 av Jeff Smith (1:14/5)
  Kommentar till text 19699 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: The Games
=================
Hello Ward.

16 Aug 08 13:42, you wrote to me:

 WD> Hi Jeff,

 JS>> In the gymnastics events the judging seemed to be totally
 JS>> subjective. I who claim no gymnastics knowledge was clueless as to
 JS>> how the judges were applying their deductions to the athletes base
 JS>> score. The commentators and sports analysts also couldn't
 JS>> understand how the judges were coming up with the their final
 JS>> scores. A seemingly equal performance by two or more athletes
 JS>> would result in drastically differant scores.

 WD> I couldn't dissagree more with you. Point to discuss if we can link-up
 WD> on Wednesday. :-)

 WD> Erhhh ... just so you know, I'm a member of the board of the gymnast
 WD> federation here (www.gymfed.be -> "Over Ons" -> "Raad van Bestuur"),
 WD> I've been quite involved in Olympic selections and I've got excellent
 WD> contacts with at least 3 judges who are now ringside in Beijing. You
 WD> have to know the FIG-rulebook and to me it seems it is applied in a
 WD> very unbiased way.

     That could be Ward. But from the view that I had I saw performances
where there were small but noticible items that the judges seemed to ignore.
While other performances that looked next to flawless got a .1 to a .5
deduction.


 WD> Sportscasters often know shit about the rules, their role is to
 WD> provide dramatic commentary which will attract viewers and these
 WD> numbers are important for the advertisers.

     Agreed. But I did take advantage of looking at some of the video
that illustrated what I was also seeing that the media provided. I also
recorded some on my DVR to review myself.

 WD> Did you know for example there actually is a rule about how to bend or
 WD> stretch toes during a triple twist? For the untrained eye impossible
 WD> to see, too fast, even for the sportscasters. The judges have a
 WD> private HD-network and the ability to zoom-in on stills ... I think
 WD> they are doing an excellent job.

     Yes. Just as there is angles that the body, arms, legs should aguire
during a particular execution.

 WD> You know ... I heard very little comment in 2004 when Paul Hamm was
 WD> given the gold after an obvious scoring-error with a too-high A-score.
 WD> Everybody saw it, everybody knew it ... the appeal had to come before
 WD> the end of the block and Paul Hamm was the lastone in that block. So
 WD> basically the Korean delegation had like 45 seconds to get it done ...
 WD> that was not enough to run even the distance after realizing what was
 WD> happening.

     In 2004 weren't there three Olympic judges that were suspended for the
error in specifing a 9.9 instead of a 10.0 which led to the error. Were there
any errors made by Yang Tae Young or Paul Hamm? Or were the errors made by
the judges? After the fact didn't a three judge (CAS) panel review the
appeal by Yang a concluded that no changes should be made?

    My point is Ward that the error was not the doing of Paul Hamm or Yang
Tae Young. But was instead an error of the Olympic judges. The same judges
that you are so strongly defending.

   I am not trying to suggest that many/most/all Olympic judges are error
prone. Just that there are enough descrepencies to make people take notice
and wonder.

 WD> I seriously object to it, Jeff, that the US would be unscored by
 WD> judges.

     Non of the examples I am refering to involved any US athletes.
Nationality doesn't seem to be an issue.

 WD> Take care,

 WD>  \%/@rd

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 WD> (2:292/854)

Jeff

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