DescentBB

One of the Female American Gymnasts landed on her feet 2 times... got so so scores for 2 very difficult vaults... but at least she landed on her feet.

A female chinese gymnast couldn't even land one of her 2 vaults... she landed on her knees... yet she gets 15+ for that vault... what a crock! I thought it should have been scored more like some of the scores where they got 12 to 14 scoring range for similar mistakes. Her other vault was somewhat decent... yet she got a better average score than the american gymnast.

Yes, I realize that they start the scoring with a preset value based on the \"difficulty\" of the vault... but that score was way out of whack with the way the were grading the non-Chinese Gymnasts.

I know... It is a very very imperfect system of scoring.

The Gold Medal count for the chinese is way out of whack too... seems that this year the host country gets the benefit of the doubt... yet the other countries get to eat the low scores.

At least grade EVERYONE with the same scoring system.

I'm not against people doing well... just give them (everyone) the scores that they EARNED... good or bad... regardless of what country that they represent!

Yup, some things never change, boxing is atrocious too.

I still cant figure out why the scores go to 15+ now....

And ya I saw that vault, that was sorta B.S. You can't blame the chinese though, the judges come from around the world.

you can blame the Chinese sniper team that have the judges in their sites the whole match.

Even Bela Karoli agreed on the terrible scoring for the Chinese Gymnast... He stated that at least 1.5 points (or more) in error by the panel of judges on the one really bad landing... That would have at least given a bronze medal to one that EARNED it! (Alicia was robbed by the unjust panel of judges!)

The Chinese gymnast didn't screw up the scoring... just landed wrong. She shouldn't even have received ANY medal in that event. Typical in this 2008 Summer Olympics!

Oh well... so much for fair judges!

Flashback to 1936

I saw it. I dunno what to say.... I'm not enough of a professional to be able to say, but it looked like crap to me, too.

Something similar happened in a Winter Olympic where the Canadian Pairs did a flawless stint, but were not rated as high as a couple who had fallen. They later found out that the French judges had been bribed.

Yup. the politics in the Olympics in on an epic level. They still haven't got the whole mess sorted out from from the winter games here in Utah a while back.. There were so many \"favors\" and moneys trading hands it looked like a 3 way train wreck.

the only thing honorable in the Olympics is the effort put out bay most of the athletes.

I bet if you took 5th graders from random schools around the world, explained the rules to them and asked them to judge the games, you would get as close to perfect judging as possible.

Will Robinson wrote:I bet if you took 5th graders from random schools around the world, explained the rules to them and asked them to judge the games, you would get as close to perfect judging as possible.

And this way the Chinese gymnasts would be judged by a jury of their peers.

Jeff250 wrote:

Will Robinson wrote:I bet if you took 5th graders from random schools around the world, explained the rules to them and asked them to judge the games, you would get as close to perfect judging as possible.

And this way the Chinese gymnasts would be judged by a jury of their peers.

You are so right. Those Chinese are much less than 16. I remember one girl, when finished, jumped into her coach's arms like an 8 year old girl hugging her dad when she does something great in ballet. Unless if that man was the girl's dad and they had a very good father-daughter relationship, I don't think that is the behavior of a 16 year old, and I mean a very strong and somewhat strange father-daughter relationship. And not to mention she doesn't have the weight of a 16 year old. No one can easily hold a 16 year old like that, even if the 16 year old was dying of hunger and was a midget, with the comfort that man showed. Some of the Chinese gymnists just look like very little girls, far from teenagers.

No performance that requires a subjective judge belongs in the Olympic games. IMHO. And neither do the horse shows either.
Two members of the Chinese Olympic team competed in past events with documents showing their current age as 14. However their government issued passports now show their age as 16 and the IOC is not going to challenge those. The government of China has spent somewhere between 40 and 70 Billion dollars putting on these games and I guess that entitles them to a bit of nudge, nudge, wink, wink in a couple of sports.

LOL, tonight, a tie-breaking program, probably made with the Chinese involved, picks the Chinese 14-year old girl (who looks/behaves 8 to me) over the American 18-year old, when clearly the Americans beat the Chinese from that start according to NBC.

Ford Prefect wrote: The government of China has spent somewhere between 40 and 70 Billion dollars putting on these games and I guess that entitles them to a bit of nudge, nudge, wink, wink in a couple of sports.

Ya, makes you feel bad for the Brits. If I were them I would just light the next Olympic flame with a cigarette lighter and be done with it.

Here in Vancouver B.C. we are hosting the 2010 Winter games. If you think there is going to be anything like the spectacle there was in Beijing think again. The budget here is more like 40 to 70 Million not Billion. We have got the BIC lighter all covered in tinfoil and ready for the show.

The Chinese do seem to be doing remarkably well at the more subjective events. In artistic gymnastics they have 9 golds, 1 silver, and 4 bronzes in 14 events. In diving, they have 6 golds and 2 bronzes in 6 events. (Comparison: the US has 2 gold, 6 silver, 2 bronze medals in artistic gymnastics, and 0 in diving.)

That's 15 of their 45 golds and 22 of their 81 medals, all in sports that are subjectively judged. They don't seem to be doing quite so well in the sports that are judged by a stopwatch (swimming, track and field -- 1 gold, 3 silvers, 4 bronzes total; the US has 15 gold, 14 silver, 15 bronze in those events.)

I don't know how shooting or weightlifting are scored. The Chinese have a ton more medals in those areas, as well.