Surprise! Olympic Controversy

The spirit of competition in Beijing has awoken the beast of controversy throughout the various events. Whether it be about synchronized swimming costumes or a Swedish wrestler's protest to the refereeing, controversy has plagued the Olympic scene. But none has aroused more uproar than the suspect new scoring system in women's gymnastics. A system which changed the 10-point system into the sum of a difficulty and a 10-pt execution score.

In one such case, Alicia Sacramone was robbed of a bronze medal in the individual women's vault competition by China's Fei Cheng, who scored a 15.562(+.025). Sacramone's two vaults were of 6.3 and 5.8 difficulties, which she executed to get an average score of 15.537. Unfortunately, Cheng, the leader after the first vault, attempted only 6.5 difficulty jumps, giving her a .90 advantage from the get go.

And of course when a person has that kind of huge advantage from the start, one would expect that any gymnast that lands on her two feet would come out on top of Sacramone. Fei Cheng landed on her knees.

I do not know what they were thinking with this new system, but it has to go. A gymnast that completes two well-executed vaults should always outscore a gymnast who lands on her knees. The higher difficulty was a risk that Cheng took upon herself, which she proceeded to royally screw up, she should have payed a more significant price. To make it worse, she was hardly docked for her crooked entrance, low elevation, and poor aerial execution; good job judges.

In another example, all-around champion, Nastia Liukin, was subjugated to silver after tying for the highest score on the uneven bars. Liukin and China's Kexin He were tied at 16.725; but in a result of a tie, of the 4 indivudal scores, the lowest is dropped and the remaining three scores are averaged. Unfortunately for Liukin, her lowest execution score was 9.0 and He's was 8.9.

The way I see it, Liukin's scores were more consistent, proving that the judges were in agreement of a very solid performance. He's execution scores were slightly more sporadic, giving the notion that they were not too sure on how to correctly judge He's routine. One could account this to their contrasting styles, but there should have been a better way of dealing with a tie; removing the next highest execution scores would have given Liukin the gold.

What really bothers me about the uneven bars fiasco was seeing the disappointment in Nastia Liukin's eyes. She sat beside her father after her performance, eagarly awaiting her scores. There was a moment of excitement that quickly faded into a look of confusion. She looked to her father after seeing the scores light up, "Why am I in second?"

From that moment she sat arms crossed and stone faced. Her entire life she practiced to become the best and on that night, the scores said that she was. The rules said she was second. Second to a 13-year old girl who's age was IOC verified by the Chinese communist government. Hrmmm?

Amidst all this controversy, these two young women maintained their poise and integrity. I am not exactly sure how they were able to remain so calm, but then again, I'm not an Olympic athlete representing my country.