# The judges screw up hardcore; men's high-bar nearly leads to riot **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 24, 2004, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220 "2004-08-24T03:58:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SylverOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@SylverOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SylverOne)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/21 "2004-08-24T15:02:49Z")
I chuckled a little when the US commentators kept comparing Nemov’s classy behavior with the temper tantrums Khorkina likes to throw when judging doesn’t go her way. I’m thinking they should just pull random spectators out of the audience to judge these competitions. At this point, I don’t think they could do any worse the the professional judges. ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/22 "2004-08-24T15:36:35Z")
Let’s not forget they screwed up judging the men’s parallel bars as well. That was also messy. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/23 "2004-08-24T16:05:24Z")
Well, I also found it interesting what the commentators said about how the intricate handwork is often overlooked by the crowd, which responds more to the exhilirating releases, though it’s often vital in assessing a routine’s difficulty. And while Nemov’s five (not six, IIRC) releases were remarkable, the Italian’s releases–while only two–were genuniely jaw-dropping (plus his landing was better). I’d say he deserved the gold, while Nemov should’ve gotten the silver. He was a class act, though, and genuine, I think, in being grateful for the support from the crowd. You know he’s the type who would’ve just let things be as they were because that’s what good sports do, brave face and all. His appreciation for the crowd being his advocate at such an unfair ruling was sweet. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/24 "2004-08-24T16:14:23Z")
> [@audiobottle](#): > > I also didn’t like the way the commentators kept making little snide comments about the Korean gymnast either. It just sounded petty. Amen. If it had been the other way around, and Hamm had been screwed, you can bet that they wouldn’t have said anything about “Hamm has made this not about the team, or about the sport, but about himself”. Gymnastics and gymnasts are amazing. But these damned judged competitions are bogus, and this is the perfect example of that fact. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/25 "2004-08-24T16:34:35Z")
> [@Tomcat](#): > > I don’t know how the coverage of that has been in the US or UK, but here, people are PISSED OFF. They feel that the USA should return the gold, which, of course, they haven’t, nor will they. Nor should they. If there was a decisive error (and Telemark’s arguments point out that the matter’s far from clear), the IOC should award a second gold to the Korean. Another thing that was pointed out last night is that, when things come down to the wire, judges will often intentionally inflate or reduce the last competitor’s score so the final G/S/B reflects what the judges (cumulatively) think is the deserved result. Since Hamm was one of the last in the all-around (and went after the eventual bronze-winner), the argument was that even if the Korean had had a better score because of the adjustment, they may have judged Hamm’s final routine a little higher anyway, if they thought he was most deserving of the gold. Can’t say that that makes things “fairer”, but it also means that adjusting the Korean’s score correctly at the time wouldn’t have automatically pushed him up to first since Hamm was still going to be judged for his (excellent) routine afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![Jpeg\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4bbf92/32.png) [@Jpeg\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jpeg_Jones)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/26 "2004-08-24T16:41:33Z")
I could’ve sworn his initial score was a 9.625, not 9.725. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/27 "2004-08-24T17:04:50Z")
So, do you think the judges revised his score due to audience disapproval, or do you think one of the judges said, “That ain’t right,” and grabbed the other judges to see how they added. ---
**Author:** ![audiobottle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/28 "2004-08-24T17:45:35Z")
I wonder. It seems like a mix of both. The judges didn’t really change their score that much - definitely not enough to put Nemov in medal contention - so it seems almost like they did it to appease the audience. Oh, and here’s an interesting take on the Paul Hamm vault fall. According this website [http://www.worldwidegymn.com/news/166/](http://www.worldwidegymn.com/news/166/) he should have been deducted quite a bit more than he was. I guess it all goes to show that it’s completely subjective, and somedays you get lucky and somedays you don’t. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/29 "2004-08-24T18:06:25Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > So, do you think the judges revised his score due to audience disapproval, or do you think one of the judges said, “That ain’t right,” and grabbed the other judges to see how they added. Well, the crowd started booing as soon as Nemov’s score was posted, and they kept booing and jeering for a few minutes. Then Adrian Stoica, the head of the FIG (International Gymnastics Federation) came down and spoke to the two low-scoring judges, the Canadian and the Malaysian. After a few minutes conferring aobut the issue, the scores were changed. It’s hard to tell whether Stoica intervened because of the crowd reaction, or whether he intended to make an appearance as soon as he saw Nemov’s score. A few of the stories i’ve read on the subject (including [this one](http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer04/gymnastics/columns/story?id=1866200)) suggest that the Malaysian judge indicated early on that he had entered an incorrect score (which sometimes happens) and wanted to amend the number. > [@](#): > > With the crowd loudly booing during Monday’s high bar competition, two judges changed their scores from the initial one awarded Russian Alexei Nemov on high bar. The Malaysian judge had raised his hand, signaling he input incorrect information into the system. The Canadian judge also changed his score, but it was not known if he gave a similar indication. All in all, it wasn’t one of gymnastics’ greatest moments. If they changed the result of their own accord, then it shows how poor the initial judging effort was. And if they changed the result because of the crowd reaction, they set a stupid and dangerous precedent. Either way, the judging system comes out of all this looking like crap. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/30 "2004-08-24T18:06:54Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > So, do you think the judges revised his score due to audience disapproval, or do you think one of the judges said, “That ain’t right,” and grabbed the other judges to see how they added. It appeared to me that the crowd was yelling for quite some time before the commissioner\* took the judges aside and had them change their scores. \*I’m not sure what his title is, but the announcers made it very clear that he _never_ makes an appearance. ---
**Author:** ![scott\_evil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@scott\_evil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scott_evil)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/31 "2004-08-24T18:20:56Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Then Adrian Stoica, the head of the FIG (International Gymnastics Federation) came down and spoke to the two low-scoring judges, the **Canadian** and the Malaysian. After a few minutes conferring aobut the issue, the scores were changed. (Bolding mine.) The same Adrian Stoica who [refused to hear the Canadian protest over Kyle Shewfelt being robbed of the bronze.](http://tsn.ca/olympics/news_story.asp?ID=95993&hubName=) The local paper’s referring to this as “Vaultgate.” I have to agree. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/32 "2004-08-24T19:24:48Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Not sure exactly if it involved forms, but there are two sets of judges. One set determines the difficulty, the other set determines the deductions. In the All Around, the judges determining the the difficulty of the Korean’s routine made a mistake and set it at 9.9, instead of 10.0, costing him +.1. BUT, the judges determining deductions missed a madatory -.2 deduction for a fourth hold move (you are only allowed three) which would ultimately drop his score by .1, possibly costing him even the bronze. The American position is that if you are going to go to the tape to review things, you need to apply it to all parts, not just selectively. > > It’s a complex issue, not simply a change on a score sheet. If you want to open these competitions to after the fact tape review, you need to consider all the ramifications. Most steps are only a .1 deduction - unless high-bar is scored differently from most of the other events, I think you may be wrong about this. Besides, Cassina’s landing may have been marginally more graceful, but both of them took a step, so both earned the deduction. Cassina’s routine deserved a score pretty close to Nemov’s, in my eyes, and I couldn’t say which deserved the gold and which the silver. But the difficulty of those blind releases had to equal any other routine there, and it’s ridiculous that the two previous competitors, whose routines didn’t come close to matching Nemov’s, earned higher scores. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/33 "2004-08-24T20:05:06Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Most steps are only a .1 deduction - unless high-bar is scored differently from most of the other events, I think you may be wrong about this. All of my comments were about the parallel bars routine during the All Around, not the high bar routines during the Individual Apparatus. The move wasn’t a step, it was having a fourth “hold” during the parallel bars, something that has a .2 deduction. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/34 "2004-08-24T20:08:14Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > I don’t believe it was Hamm who requested Nemov quiet the crowd. And sure, Aleksei was enjoying it - why shouldn’t he? He’d just been ripped off by the judges and felt vindicated by the crowd’s reaction. I thought it was a very classy thing to do to quiet a crowd that is very obviously on his side. And yeah, I believe part of the crowd’s flap was in reaction to the judging error in the All-Around. Paul Hamm was in a very unenviable position when he had to try to perform while the crowd was still agitated and he did beautifully. Just not as beautifully as Nemov had just before him. > > StG I think Hamm did request Nemov to quiet the crowd. Hamm was standing there, rather helplessly, as the crowd went crazy, even going so far as to boo him. He turned around, took a few steps towards Nemov, said something, and then his coach said something, and then Nemov jumped up and motioned for the crowd to calm down. ---
**Author:** ![Spezza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Spezza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spezza)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/35 "2004-08-24T21:22:14Z")
I do not understand why they do not take a harder stand against judges that cheat. Even if it isn’t always cheating, if they are incompetent enough to deduct mandatory marks, they should be banned. All these, obvious, scoring scandals are turning people off these already fringe sports. Why watch something that is fixed or at the very best badly marked? The athletes are banned for years (if not their entire effective sporting career) for doping or other cheating methods. Why do they not take such a hard stance against judges caught doing the same? At least when the athletes dope it is not so obvious. Personally, if I were an athletes who trained years for those few minutes of competition, only to be cheated out of a Olympic metal because of an overweight foreign biased judge…, well I would not take it as well as they competitors do. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2004, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/36 "2004-08-24T23:02:00Z")
There was also a really bad error in the women’s all-around in 2000. Remember how Svetlana Khorkina messed up her vault? It was because the apparatus was incorrectly set, the height was wrong, so she screwed up. It was another competitor who pointed it out, but by then it was too late, she had fallen off the parallel bars. This is of the same magnitude as the Nemov thing, maybe worse. Why is this sport so rife with errors? It’s unconscionable. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2004, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/37 "2004-08-25T00:30:12Z")
You would think they would doublecheck their scores before they submit them. There’s a lot of pressure, and taking an extra second or two to make sure you didn’t transpose numbers would save a lot of heartaches. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2004, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/38 "2004-08-25T13:42:07Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > There was also a really bad error in the women’s all-around in 2000. Remember how Svetlana Khorkina messed up her vault? It was because the apparatus was incorrectly set, the height was wrong, so she screwed up. It was another competitor who pointed it out, but by then it was too late, she had fallen off the parallel bars. This is of the same magnitude as the Nemov thing, maybe worse. Why is this sport so rife with errors? It’s unconscionable. ISTR this a bit differently: 1. Khorkina wasn’t the only one who had a less than flawless (disastrous in Khorkina’s case; she landed on her knees) vault. 2. It wasn’t exactly immediately dealt with when the vault height was found to be [almost two inches off](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/sports/olympics/20roberts.html). The article says she dismissed another shot at the vault, which isn’t how I remember it happening, but I wasn’t there, so my impression could easily be wrong. ISTR some other unpleasant things at the 2000 games (weights off for a weight-specific event, diving bell too shallow) happening. Am I the only one? ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2004, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/39 "2004-08-25T15:47:50Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > All of my comments were about the parallel bars routine during the All Around, not the high bar routines during the Individual Apparatus. > > The move wasn’t a step, it was having a fourth “hold” during the parallel bars, something that has a .2 deduction. Wow, I’m sorry. I dunno how I managed to read what you wrote and interpret it so very, very badly. :smack: Yeah, I’m not so bright. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2004, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220/40 "2004-08-25T21:00:59Z")
> [@iampunha](#): > > It wasn’t exactly immediately dealt with when the vault height was found to be [almost two inches off](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/sports/olympics/20roberts.html). The article says she dismissed another shot at the vault, which isn’t how I remember it happening, but I wasn’t there, so my impression could easily be wrong. By the time it was discovered that the vault was set wrong, Khorkina had already fallen off the parallel bars, so it didn’t matter if she did the vault again, she’d lost her shot at the all-around medal. BTW, the person who discovered that the vault was the wrong height was not a judge but actually one of the competitors. The only reason I mentioned this is that it seems like the officials are making egregious errors all over the place, not just scoring. It reeks of incompetence and to me, there’s no excuse for it. They expect perfect performance from the athletes, so why can’t the athletes expect it from them? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-judges-screw-up-hardcore-mens-high-bar-nearly-leads-to-riot/261220.md?page=1)