The Olympics (My thoughts on the Games so far, plus I Solve the Gymnastic Judging Problem)

I'm not going to lie, I love the Olympics. Partly because I love competition. That's part of it. But a larger part is probably the pageantry excites me. I like the dedication that the Olympics requires of a majority of its athletes. That's impressive. And there are always good stories at the Olympics and I'm a sucker for good stories.

These Olympics have been outstanding so far. There have been many memorable moments, Jamaican Usain Bolt winning gold and setting world records in the 100m and 200m while jogging, Jonathon Horton going all out on the Men's Horizontal Bar to win Silver, Jason Lezak in the Men's 4x100 freestyle relay to keep Phelp's hopes alive, and the comeback against the Belgium team to keep Misty May and Kerri Walsh from losing even a set in Olympic play all come to mind. For me, the most memorable moment will always be the men's 100m Butterfly. I was watching with a group of friends all of whom felt like as it happened that Phelps's quest was over. However, just as his hand hit the wall I knew that somehow against all odds he had won. I immediately yelled out that he had won and was quickly vindicated by the screen, his name and the number 1 appearing in his lane. I'll never forget watching the numerous slow motion replays from multiple angles confirming that which I was already sure of, that Phelps was the greatest athlete I had ever seen.

There have been many shocking moments as well, including early this morning when the US women's softball team lost the gold medal match to Japan. The first time ever that the US hasn't won the Softball gold. In fact, many people believe that the reason Softball isn't in the Olympics anymore after this year is because the IOC didn't believe that the US Softball team could ever be beat. I for one didn't think that there was anyway the US wouldn't be coming home with gold in softball, yet they'll have to settle for silver. Meanwhile in Baseball (also in it's last hurrah at the Olympics) people are shocked at the extra innings rule. If the game goes into the 11th inning, both teams will start the inning with runners on 1st and 2nd, no one out, and can start their lineup wherever they want. (For more on my thoughts on this, check out my post at 100 Years Later.) But perhaps the most shocking is the tie breaker in Woman's Gymnastics.

This tie breaking procedure was brought to light due to the Woman's Uneven Bars Final. Both He Kexin of China and Nastia Luikin of the US finished with an execution score of 9.025 (the difficulty for both was 7.7). Under the old rules, both would be awarded a Gold Medal.

The way that they come up with the execution score is that 6 judges all score the gymnast on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being perfection). The highest score and lowest score are dropped. The remaining four scores are averaged together.

Here are the four scores remaining for each in this case.

He Kexin
9.1 9.1 9.0 8.9
Avg. 9.025

Natsia Luikin
9.1 9.0 9.0 9.0
Avg. 9.025

So, under the new rules, if tied at this point, the lowest remaining score is now dropped. This appears sort of arbitrary it could just as easily being the highest remaining score that is dropped. If that had been the case, Luikin would have won gold. As it is, she had to settle for silver.

Gymnastics have always been controversial. Everyone has talked about how the Chinese gymnasts are most likely under the Olympic required age of 16, but I don't really think that there should be an age requirement. If an 11 year old can compete at this level, she should be allowed to. That's just me. The new scoring system was brought about because of controversy. It is hoped that the difficulty score would take out some of the subjectivity from the judges.

Also, judges from the countries involved in the medal rounds are not allowed to judge, again trying to remove bias. This causes new problems, however. Primarily because the most experienced judges are from countries that are involved in the medal round and therefore the judges in the medal round are from countries that don't have a strong gymnastic program and therefore aren't as experienced at judging the execution of the athletes.

Of course, the bias of judges is a problem, even when the countries competing aren't being judged by judges from their own country or another country competing against them. While the NBC commentators are certainly biased themselves, they all agreed that Nastia Luikin had outperformed He Kexin, but the cheers of the Chinese crowd probably influenced the judges and caused slightly higher scores then she deserved.

So, what can be done about this? It seems no matter what there will be bias. Judging for gymnastics is just too subjective. Perhaps we should just stop watching it.

But wait, maybe there is an answer. And I am here to provide it.

If you've watched football recently (American football, but congrats to the US Women who just won the gold medal in the other football against Brazil) then perhaps you've seen the new technology that allows the announcers to turn all of the players into computer generated versions of themselves, allowing us to see the play from all different angles. The same thing could be done to the gymnasts.

In my idea, the judges would be seperated from the crowd, not allowed to watch the competition live. Instead, they would be shown a digital representation of the event. Not knowing who the gymnast was or what country he or she was from would remove all subjectivity, all bias, from the judging and allow the best judges to work throughout the contest.

Yet another problem solved by me. Same thing could work in Ice Skating in the Winter Olympics.

I'm just here to help.