Sorry, I may have confused matters. I had two separate thoughts going there.
My comment about the 9.1 was not about the tie breaker. If Liukin had gotten a 9.1, there would have been no tie braker.
That doesn’t work either, unless I am mistaken. Even if it did work, why single out Australia when Poland and New Zealand gave 9.1’s?
It must be something lingering from a previous event.
In case anyone is confused, Jones was a boxer.
I don’t know that it was a bribe so much as a quid pro quo; the french judge voting for the russian pair, and the russian judge voting for the french ice dancers.
But the whole way that covered and analyzed at the time really made me question the media. There were nine judges for the skating; four of them scored the canadian pair in first place, five of them scored the russian pair first. So why did all the scorn come down on the french judge? If the canadian pair was better, doesn’t that call into question the judgement of all five of those judges? It broke down along the old western/eastern bloc lines, with the french judge as a swing vote. But is that sort of favoritism accepted within the sport, and not even worth commenting on? The press didn’t cover that angle at all, which makes me think they’ll miss the details of this story, too.
I think RedSwinglineOne point is if Australia gave Nastia Liukin a 9.1 instead of a 9.0, her total resultant score would’ve been higher than the Chinese gymnast, therefore obviating the need for any tiebreaks whatsoever.
I wanted to deal with this statement:
What do you want the IOC to do? The government of China has provided these girls with documents stating that they are more than the minimum age. It doesn’t make a difference what country they are from; for the IOC to look further into it would mean the IOC would have to refuse to accept the official, legal documents issued by the country for which the athlete is competing. There are some serious potential repercussions for trying to do that, regardless of whether it’s China or Botswana.
Now, if you can demonstrate that the refusal of the IOC to look into the matter is at odds with previous examples of the same sort of issue where the IOC DID look into official government documents purporting to establish sufficient age, then you might have something.
OK, I get that, but New Zealand also gave a 9.0 and scored He higher. Brazil was 9.0 for both. I don’t understand why she singled out the Aussie judge. If any of the judges (except South Africa) had scored her one tenth of a point higher she would have won.
The Aussie judge had the most spread. It turns out the top score was thrown out, but the low score was kept.
Here is an exaggerated example:
Judge 1: You get 8.6, Opponent gets 8.8
Judge 2: You get 9.0, Opponent gets 8.9
Judge 3: You get 8.9, Opponent gets 8.8
Judge 4: You get 9.2, Opponent gets 9.3
Judge 5: You get 9.1, Opponent gets 9.0
“Biased” Judge: You get 9.0, Opponent gets 9.7
In this example, the biased judge’s high score of 9.7 is dropped along with Judge #1’s 8.8. The remaining are averaged, which works out to 9.0.
Your high of 9.2 is dropped along with 8.6. Your result is also 9.0.
But if you examine the numbers closely, it appears Judge 1 is a “mean” judge. The Simon Cowell, if you will. And Judge 4 could be considered a “nice” judge, a la Paula Abdul. This is all fine and dandy, because one judge might be harsher with deductions and another is somewhat incompetent and tends to overlook mistakes. As long as they are consistent, we chalk that up to human nature and consider it fair. Just as one umpire might have a bigger strike zone, it is fair if that ump applies the same strike zone fairly to both teams. Since the biggest difference in scores for the first five judges is 0.2, it appears on the up and up.
But if you look at the Biased Judge, clearly something is going on. If the opponent scores a 9.7, a fair judge would give you a higher score than 9.0. Since that judge is not sharing the love equally between competitors, people notice and point it out.
It happens to work out in this example that the tiebreak would prevent you from receiving Gold. In all honestly, what would you think of the scores from the last judge?
In the real scenario, the last score was 9.3 instead of 9.7, but the idea is the same.
Well…there certainly seems to be a real question with the ages. There were Chinese newspaper reports that they are younger then they are…conveniently pulled shortly after the controversy broke. Hell, just looking at them it is very hard to believe they are age 16. Nevertheless the IOC could look in to this. Presumably these girls have competed before and one would hope there were records.
That said I would think at this point, in this digital age, media and bloggers have scoured the world for evidence and so far there is no smoking gun.
I hope it’s not a hijack to point out that **sport should not involve judging ** (because of previous bias, home team advantage, inexperienced jduges and bribery), but just be faster, higher or score more goals etc.
Gymnastics is an art form.
We all know China would do anything to win more medals. The IOC is not set up to deal with systemized cheating at the country level.
Of course, if the IOC is unable and unwilling (as in this case) to enforce their own rules, then it pretty much negates the benefit of having those rules.
They are pretty much setting the groundwork for even more widespread coruption and cheating (if that is possible given some of the questionable actions in these games) making the games less and less relevent.
Thanks Controvert. You made my point much more clearly than I did. 
Most other sports don’t require “judging,” but many of them do require “judgment.” Gymnastics is not really like skating, where there is a score just for the artistic component. Instead, there are very specific guidelines, covering everything about the trick, from how many revolutions in the air, to whether your legs are together and your toes are pointed. The deductions are taken for not following how the trick is described in the guidelines. In this way, I don’t see that much of a difference between gymnastics, and, say, baseball, where a human being has to call balls & strikes. The umpire has a guideline…the strikezone is over home plate and the batter’s shoulders to his knees. Yet, despite this very specific rule and the fact that the umpire is standing right there, there are huge variations in how well that judgement is made. Or, take football, where we all know if a player carries the ball into the end zone, they score 6 points. But what if he’s right at the corner by the pylon? Is he in our out? That’s a judgement call, as well. My point is, all sports have guidelines and rules that are enforced by officials, in order to be sure that the rules are followed. Some sports it is a little tougher for the officials to affect the outcome of the game, but didn’t we just have a scandal in the NBA, where officials were caught taking bribes? Happens in every sport.
Thanks, I try. I appreciated your comment.
Exactly. Any sport that involves a referee is relying on judgement of the human being. Even with video review, you can have two people with different opinions about the same foul. The rules for deductions in gymnastics are clearly defined, but even with video review two judges will disagree.
What if the competitors did not wear national uniforms but identical ones. If their faces could somehow, (lighting?) be made invisible to the judges, do you think this would change they way things work out?
I think it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to run a gymnastics meet that way.
I recently read a book written by a former US National champion (It’s called Chalked Up). She said that it’s just a fact of gymnastics that bias affects scoring. If a particular judge personally likes a gymnast, or if the gymnast has a good reputation, or what not, then that gymnast will see higher scores. Now, she wasn’t necessarily accusing the judges of deliberate bias, but merely acknowledging that it exists. But, as I said, it exists in virtually all sports. Maybe not one like sprinting, where these days literally the entire race can be measured with electronic timing devices, but what basketball fan wouldn’t agree that Michael Jordan had an awful lot of questionable calls go his way?
As far as the age controversy goes, if all it takes to get the FIG and the IOC to side with you is a letter from your government, I’m sure that plenty of countries would be glad to certify their athlete “Dope Free” and bypass the testing. Face it - it there is a real question about cheating, then an enquiry should be made. In the case of the gymnasts, an x-ray of the growth plates in their wrists should be required.
StG