Reply to Jordan Chiles - must give back her bronze medal

Forum Index » Sports General Discussion

Reply to "Jordan Chiles - must give back her bronze medal"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The US was not seconds late.

[b]The judging panel used the wrong point value for a particular skill performed by Chiles.  This incorrect value lowered Chiles total score by 0.1 thus taking her out of the bronze medal.  The judging made an error.  It was not a question of whether Chiles did or did not correctly perform the skill.  She did it correctly.  Everyone agrees she did it and that she did it correctly.  But, the judging panel - for some reason - valued the skill 0.1 points lower than its assigned value.

Do the skill you get X.  There is no “judging” aspect to consider if the skill is performed correctly.  And, again, there is no question the skill was performed correctly.  The panel was just wrong.  Why they were wrong is unknown.  But no one disputes that they were wrong.[/b]

Under the gymnastics competition rules, scoring errors can be challenging if raised within 1 minute after the scores officially being posted.  It is a very short time period.  But, the short time period makes sense when you are talking about a traditional competition rather than an Olympic single apparatus event.

Think about it.  Gymnast X is 0.1 ahead of Gymnasts Y going into the next apparatus event, or in the same apparatus event.  In order to get ahead of Gymnast X and “win”, Gymnast Y may elect to do a more difficult and risky skill to gain the necessary fraction of a point.  But, Gymnast Y will take a bigger risk of failing on that skill and fall out of contention for a win.

Here it is a very different issue.

Rather than take the time to see if the US properly and timely challenged the point assessment the review panel took the Romanian submitted video and assumed that it 
showed the first US challenge to the scoring coming in 4 seconds too late.  The huge problem now is that the Romanian video showed the third US conversation and not the first or second ones.  Why Romania had video of the third conversation only is a question that must be answered.  The US has contended all along that they knew they timely challenged the score.  And - the US coaching staff is right.  There is video of the first US challenge presented 47 seconds after the Chiles score was posted.  And, an additional protest with supporting values was presented to the judges by the US team 55 seconds after the Chiles score was posted.

So - lots of errors and possibly just corruption here.  The scoring panel “errored” in assessing the value of a skill.  There is zero chance that happens accidentally.  The scores are not blank sheets.  The judging panel knows what the gymnasts are doing in advance including possible changes (eg if a higher difficulty score were needed to medal).  The gymnasts are not making it up as they go along.  Why did the panel make such an error?  That has to be determined.

Second - why did the review panel not consider other video?  The US claimed it timely questioned the score.  Apparently, the only video reviewed was submitted by Romania showing only the 3rd conversation at 1:04 after the score is posted, and not the first two at 47 seconds and again at 55 seconds after the score is posted.

So - the judging panel got it right.  The medals were properly awarded and the timing challenge was wrong.  And, frankly, unless the camera used by Romaina was suddenly turned on between 56 seconds after the score was posted and 64 seconds claimed by Romania, they knew the challenge was wrong when they submitted it and left out the key evidence to mislead the review panel.

[/quote]

This summary contains many incorrect statements about the evidence and the initial judging. I can't address all of them, but it's absolutely not true that no one disputes that Jordan completed the skill in question. Many, many people, including the initial panel of judges, think that the skill was not completed. There is a judging aspect of the skill and room for debate. You don't get credit for a difficult skill if you don't actually do it according to the requirements (or within a set margin). The same skill was in the routines Jordan performed during qualifications and team finals, and she didn't get credit for it then, just as she initially didn't get credit for it during floor finals. I don't have the data, but I wonder if she had ever gotten credit for it in competition? Most gymnasts don't.

However, her coaches thought that Jordan did it better during team finals, so they inquired. Here is what her coach said:

“She was out of the podium already, so even if they drop the score, [it’s] nothing worse,” said Laurent Landi, who coaches Chiles alongside his wife. “I was [at] the same angle as the judge.[b] And I felt it was way better than all the other meets that she’s done, so what the heck? We might as well try.[/b]”

[b]That's hardly a ringing endorsement. In truth, I think that the coaches probably also thought she didn't complete it, or at least they knew that it was borderline. Otherwise, why did they wait around for more than 40 seconds doing nothing? [/b]I can't speak to the timing of the inquiry or the decision of the Superior Jury (a different panel of judges), who changed the score. But the situation with the score is nowhere near as clear cut as everyone is claiming. Quite frankly, I take issue with USAG suggesting that not giving Jordan credit for the skill was egregious or unfair. Reasonable minds can disagree without any corruption involved. If USAG is going to attack the judging panel for not crediting a skill that Jordan rarely, if ever, has performed adequately to get credit for, I'd ask why the skill is even in her routine?

In any event, the score itself is not something that can be disputed at this point. The Superior Jury changed it to credit the skill, so that aspect of the decision stands. She gets credit for the difficulty. The only issue that can be reviewed is whether proper procedures were followed in terms of whether the inquiry was made in time. Given that fact, again, I take issue with USAG making any statements about the D score assigned by the judging panel.

The whole situation has been botched beyond belief, but much of what is being said on social media is not accurate. I hate that this happened because Jordan Chiles is an exciting gymnast and an even better human being who doesn't deserve any of this.

Also, if there is anyone who knows more about FIG rules than I do, can you tell me whether the Superior Jury could have tried to get the judges to change the score before it was posted if it was completely off base? I thought that they could.[/quote]
I don't think this is fair.  My understanding is that the coaches had to make the call whether to file an inquiry based on what they saw live from where they were standing (i.e., did she complete 360 degrees) and, from what they could see, they thought it was better than what she had done previously and was likely sufficient. Any doubt by the coaches at the time of the challenge could very much be based on their viewing angle and the fact that they were watching for a bunch of different elements while watching a live performance.  My understanding is that the judges looked at the replay and found that she'd completed the element.  I haven't heard anyone--including the Romanians or other experts--challenge whether this was the correct call.  There seems to be broad based consensus that she did indeed complete the element and deserved the 0.1 increase in difficulty.  Comments about doubts by the US coaches were about the short time period that they had to file an inquiry (without time to review a replay) and have since been resolved by watching a replay.

It's completely insane to say that the US coaches must not have been confident because they waited 40 seconds before filing their inquiry.  That's barely time to discuss one element in the routine, let alone other scoring elements that they were also considering and whether the judges had potentially missed any scoring deductions that would drop her score.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics