I’m supposed to be taking some time for my mental health, not writing blog posts about gymnastics.
It’s not only my mental health, but that of the whole gymnastics and sporting community. You, my readers, know that the Court for the Arbitration of Sport has reassigned the bronze medal in the BB event at the Olympics. We finally have the right finishing order, but the FIG is at huge fault here. The appeals system went wrong in both its substance and its process, and before that the judges had failed, giving us inaccurate marks and unfair finishing orders.
The gymnasts, Jordan Chiles and Ana Barbosu, are suffering and instead of unbounded joy and pride they feel humiliation and confusion and embarrassment. That the judges couldn’t get the medals in the right order first time (and that there’s still one out there, Sabrina Voinea, whose question is left unresolved) is the biggest pair of oversized pants since the last time the FIG messed up.
That coaches only have a minute to lodge an appeal at the end of a competition has always been unworkable, and visibly so since Yang was denied his gold in 2004. The collective brain cell of the FIG EC failed to notice a fatal flaw in their systems, and this left the gymnasts vulnerable.
The judging of the floor final should be reviewed in its entirety on a lessons learned basis. Knuckles should be rapped and new pages turned. A head or two should roll.
It’s my opinion that Simone Biles’ failure to deliver her usual reliable performance left the judges reeling to the extent that they couldn’t do their job any more. They have been used to dishing out the highest scores to the Olympic champion without really having much need to work at it. When Simone made unexpected errors, it meant that their idea of the finishing order was shattered, and they didn’t know what to do. They were shocked at having to judge, forgot how to judge, and everything went downhill from there. It ended up with the mess of the appeals panel who mistook the name Chiles for Biles (they rhyme) and granted an upgrade that should never have been given. Then the CAS had to make a ruling which the FIG has recorded and the IOC still has to enact, but probably won’t.
The losers are the gymnasts. It should never happen.
And secondly :
I looked at the Russia Cup WAG EF results. Based on those scores, Russian gymnasts may have secured bronze medals in the UB and BB finals, but of course the scoring may not calibrate. It’s a moot point.
I think Russian gymnastics is done for now, and that’s a sad triumph for the sports politicians, even though we want to support Ukraine.
The Russian state has chosen the military over sports. What a bad decision that is.
But was it really necessary and ethical to write Russia and the Soviet Union out of Olympic history both in the opening ceremony and the coverage of the sports? To censor even the merest mention of the defending champions, MAG and WAG, from the broadcast and media coverage? This was so widespread that it must have involved a collective and premeditated decision at a high level. It wasn’t, though, a transparent, publicly discussed strategy - I can’t find any minutes or announcements about it.
You didn’t have to glorify the history. Nor was burying it the right thing. This smacks of authoritarianism.
Finally, there’s something that links the two parts of this post.
There’s a common theme : sports politicians like to be able to rewrite history, whether it’s to cover up mistakes they made in the scores, or for larger political goals.
When will the book burning begin?