2008 Olympic Women's Gymnastics Scoring
Evaluating Claims of Judging Bias in the All Around and Event Finals
Many gymnastics fans, including NBC's Olympic gymnastics commentator Tim Daggett, have been surprised by the scoring in the women's individual all around final and the event finals, particularly vault. Gymnastics, however, is a subjective sport, and safeguards are built in to avoid bias. There have been no serious accusations of bias, and in fact in most cases a change in the scores would not have yielded a different result.
Johnson and Liukin Scoring Low in the All Around; Yang Scoring High
Though Tim Daggett pointed out in his NBC commentary on the all around final that several scores were unexpected – Nastia Liukin's vault and bars scores and Shawn Johnson's bars score were both low, while Yang Yilin's bars and beam scores were high – he also pointed out that there was no suggestion of biased judging, and that the panels are not made up of Chinese judges. In fact, the panels are composed of judges from different countries, and they change for each event, which is why scores may differ slightly on the average.
Though Daggett is right – it is hard to see why those particular routines were scored the way they were – it would not have changed the results in the all around. Had Liukin received the scores expected, she would only have won with a higher margin, and Johnson would not have caught her considering the six-tenths of a point between their final scores and the fact that Johnson's score only seemed low on one event. Yang, again, had such a margin between herself and the next highest placed Semenova that a few tenths would not have mattered.
Analysis of Cheng's Bronze Medal on Vault over Alicia Sacramone Despite a Fall
Though it seemed strange to many that Chinese gymnast Cheng Fei would finish above American Alicia Sacramone, who landed both vaults when Cheng fell to her knees on the vault named after her, the result was not obviously unfair. Both of her vaults were much harder than Sacramone's, making her A-score higher. The A and B scores are added together, and the scores for the two vaults are averaged. She got a large B-score deduction for the fall, but performed very well on her first vault – significantly better even than the winner. She bested Sacramone by a very small margin, but the reason does not appear to be judging bias.
Safeguards Built in to Avoid Judging Bias
In women's gymnastics, there are several safeguards built into the system to avoid bias. First, as mentioned, the judges come from different countries and the panels rotate. Second, the judges work in panels, with the high and low B-score thrown out and the rest averaged. Third, if there is a greater difference in the scores than a certain acceptable margin, a head judge can ask the judges to conference again and the deviating judge to change his score.
Fans should also note that judges have very tight deduction parameters within which to work. Their job is to assess very specific things – was the gymnast's body in a full 180-degree split position; was the handstand less than thirty degrees from vertical; did the gymnast stay inside the lines? Once they determine what happened in the routine, they have a narrow range of choice in terms of what deduction to take. It is still a subjective sport, but only just.
Related Reading:
The New Women's Gymnastics Scoring System
2008 Olympics
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