(no subject)

[tiggz]

regarding the judging in gymnastics going on in Beijing. i feel like nothing has changed since Athens. there is something completely WRONG going on and the IOC is completely to blame. it's fucking ridiculous. when i asked for change four years ago, i didn't mean i wanted it to go from bad to worse! gah! incompetent judges.

Nastia? you are one hell of a woman and competitor. you wuz robbed!!11!

Comments

[susanw.livejournal.com]

It sounds so much like what happened to skating after Salt Lake--fix a bad system by making it worse.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

a million times yes.

did you hear Costas interviewing Tim Dagget and Bela before the gymnastics? Tim said outright that a lot of judges are scoring on reputations and THAT is complete and utter bullshit. it's not about reputations. it's about the routine they're doing. right there. right now.

i'm so full of rage.

[susanw.livejournal.com]

I didn't hear the interview, but it doesn't surprise me. I'm still disgusted that no one in the IOC or the gymnastics federation is calling the Chinese on their blatant use of underage gymnasts.

[aka-becker.livejournal.com]

Crap I haven't seen this yet.

I know that she's been underscored the whole Olympics in floor, pommel and balance beam, but got lucky in that she was still good enough to medal anyway. Which even was tonight? If this was uneven bars, I'll be severely sad as no one can touch her on that.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

sorry! unfortunately, nbcolympics.com is ruining all of these finals for me since they were filmed last night.

i'm not telling you if she medaled or not, but it was uneven bars. (and you're right. no one does touch her on bars.)

[scourgeoe.livejournal.com]

See i saw bars, was impressed as always with her, Tweddle for that matter was fairly solid but the mistakes cost her.

But yes, outstanding athlete and the judging has been...off.

[hollyn.livejournal.com]

I'll bet her daddy is pissed!

One thing I'll give those girls is they are troopers. They are handling the crap a lot better than I would.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

they were both pissed!! and completely justified to be so.

[hollyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I'd be more afraid of daddy taking someone out.

[carencey77.livejournal.com]

seriously. I'm not sure if the problem is the American women being underscored, or the Chinese athletes being overscored since they so rarely break down anyone else's scores, but something is up. Can they not challenge deductions? or is it that they can't challenge another athlete's score and only their own?

and there is no reason to break a tie that way. The men's vault tiebreaker made more sense (even though I don't think it needed to be broken either). There is no reason to do what was done in the women's competition -- it simply penalizes whoever gets the most consistent scores!

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

i think it's probably a little bit of both underscoring and overscoring. they could have challenged the score itself, i guess, but not the tie breaker. i think Valeri wanted to protest, but was talked out of it by Martha.

that tie breaker is completely wacked. i can't even properly convey my rage. i really can't.

[aka-becker.livejournal.com]

OK, they couldn't challenge anything as they can only challenge the results if the degree of difficulty was lowered by the judges and they couldn't challenge the tie breaker as the rules were followed to the nebulous letter.


I don't know why they waited so long to make one point: the judges can't be of any of the countries in the competition which means all of the judges are from countries who have never medaled and they just don't have the experience. They need to find a way to fix that. Now knowing their complete lack of experience, I get it a little bit more, but it's still ridiculous.

Lastly, as the birth certificates have been "lost", the only proof of the girls ages are the passports which have them all over 16. A Chinese news site had a story up (for about 20 minutes) saying that one of the girls was only 13 in December at another event.

(some of these are general replies)

[carencey77.livejournal.com]

ah. I thought that might be the case. It probably would result in utter chaos if everyone was allowed to challenge every deduction that every judge made. But I could have sworn that they said the other night that the head judge was supposed to be reviewing things to make sure they weren't way off and that all the deductions were being taken...and evidently that isn't happening. (It was whatever they were saying during the ladies all-around, there was a holdup from the head judge over someone's balance beam score.)

[aka-becker.livejournal.com]

I remember there was a big hold up on one of the girls and the head lady actually came over the to table. That usually was because she has to OK and reductions in the difficulty level, but if I remember right, the person kept their level. Though I think I might be thinking of either Nastia or Johnson in the floor event. I don't know what the heck the head judge is really doing and her "It is what it is" thing sounded almost annoyed when she talked to Nastia after the bars routine.

[paksenarrion2.livejournal.com]

Something that really pissed me off yesterday? Alicia Sacramone getting denied the bronze. The Chinese gymnast (who's name escapes me now) doesn't complete her vault and LANDS ON HER KNEES scored as high as she did?? Bullshit.

And regarding tonight's men's vault? Marian Dragelescue (I know I spelled that wrong) does essentially the same thing yet ends up fourth???

<----is making Svetlana Khorkina bitch face right now.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

there is no doubt that Alicia was robbed. Chen was the Chinese gymnast.

Svetlana wouldn't have put up with this bullshit. i miss her and her diva ways. i really do.

[paksenarrion2.livejournal.com]

Did you see her the other day. She looks amazing. Funny what a little weight on a too thin frame can do.

And I love Nastia because she has that graceful look that i find lacking in many of today's gymnasts. Plus? Her dad is a hottie. Definitely a DILF.

and I don't feel like a pedophile perving over him vs perving over Michael Phelps. I am old enough to be his mother...

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

i did see her! i went to youtube and found some clips of her in Russia's Celebrity Circus and she look great. apparently she had a kid a year or so ago.

Valeri isn't bad, but gymnasts are always so teeny!

[tourogal.livejournal.com]

more aerodynamic. :o)

[hollyn.livejournal.com]

I do appreciate the girls having good sportsmanship, but the thought of a sudden turn to a Svetlana 'tude is pretty funny to me for some reason.

[betta329.livejournal.com]

I am so pissed about the gymnastics. The judges have ruined it. Yes, the Chinese have higher start values, but look at what happened to Alicia Sacramone. The Chinese girl had misplaced hands AND she fell, which is supposed to be at least 1.6 points in deductions, but she didn't even lose a full point and got the bronze.

This tiebreaker was absolutely ridiculous. Nastia deserved the gold. They freaking do ties in every other sport, and this form of tie breaker is just punishment. It is absolutely ridiculous.

I have followed gymnastics since the magnificent seven in 1996, and this is just ridiculous. It has gotten so bad and so ridiculous, so much more so than even figure skating. I am so angry I don't even want to watch the balance beam finals because I don't want to see the judges rip off more people, not just Americans but all of the girls are suffering because of this ridiculousness.

I'm glad there are others that are as into gymnastics as I am, and are pissed, too.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

there shouldn't have even been a tie to begin with!! He Kexin had at least three mistakes in her routine. Nastia had one. they had the same exact start value. so that should be a no brainer.

[egoboy1.livejournal.com]

i only saw the floor excercise, but i agree the judging was awful . don't know the name exactly, but the bronze should have at least gotten silver. and the other way around. if i remember correctly.....ah, not sure really lol, i'm all about the soccer, swimming and sprinting. lol

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

see...i'm all about swimming and gymnastics. i'll watch the other stuff, but those are the only things i'm going to deprive myself of sleep to watch.

what happened to Pieter van den Hoogenband this year, roy? i was so sad for him!

[egoboy1.livejournal.com]

he's past it. unfortunatly. :( and i dn't get to watch as much as i'd like. Have a new job and all, so can't really afford to get up in the middle of the night to watch stuff , and then i miss the re-runs in the afternoon because i'm at work !! :(

[spikmeister.livejournal.com]

I also felt that Beth Tweddle was robbed as well. I agree that Nastia Luikin was excellent on the bars but so was Beth!

[cucumbersarnies.livejournal.com]

Beth's routine looked so fast! It was quite freaky.

[scourgeoe.livejournal.com]

she was off the chart in difficulty, if she goes into 2012 with that routine nailed she'll be unchallenged

[spikmeister.livejournal.com]

But I thought she did better than the mark she got this year - considering the difficulty, how did they take that much off?

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

i just went and rewatched it.

a lot of it is her form. she's never completely vertical like she should be when she's on the top bar and she arches her back a bit too much when attempting to get there. her feet were separated on a couple of the moves and she almost hit her foot on the lower bar right before her dismount, which is what caused her to take that huge step on the dismount.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

supposedly, she's retiring after this year. but i've heard that before from various athletes.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

beth was fantastic. i still can't tell how in the hell she did that release move where her whole body switched directions and she went immediately to the low bar. absolutely phenomenal.

[aka-becker.livejournal.com]

OK, now I've seen it. I'm glad she still at least got what she got. (I had a higher level of tension and was afraid someone else was going to get a higher score. At least it was closer than the travesty of Alicia getting no medal on the vault and the girl landing on her knees and getting a bronze for it. I think it's total bs that a tie is not allowed. It is in almost all the other sports.

Back to Nastia, on these events, when she does certain moves, due to her lines, she looks like her legs are 6 feet long. I've gained a lot of extra respect for her in how she's dealt with it.

[marshmallow.livejournal.com]

I don't even fully understand why they had a tie breaker in the first place.. I thought you used to be able to share gold in gymnastics? I know you still can in other sports. I didn't see it last night, but when I watched the review of it this morning, I was just baffled. :/

(And I'm still ticked about the vault scoring from Sunday night :P~~)