King,

You write that you would have preferred to find the highest score where one competitor did better than the other, and award the competitor who did better. Instead you say, the found the lowest score where one competitor did worse, and awarded the competitor who did worse. But you point out that the result is the same.

There is a good reason the results are the same.

The two competitors TIED, overall. If two competitors tie, and not all of the judges awarded them the same score, then higher scores among top end judges must be BALANCED by lower scores at the bottom end, or it wouldn't be a tie. In other words, if a judge who gives a good score favors one competitor, then their must be an equal amount of judges giving lower scores who favored the other competitor.

Wit 4 scores, if two of the judges award the same score to both competitors your method and the method used in the olympics ALWAYS gives the same result. It's impossible for them not to.

The only time your method and the olympic method differ is when 3 or more scores differ between the competitors. But, if that were the case, it's not obvious your approach is better. If 3 or more scores differ, the olympic method effectively awards the average of the those 3 scores, whereas your method merely lets whoever scored it highest determine the winner.

But, overall, you are just correct. This whole thing is just a waste of everyone's time!

Cheers,

dave

The Olympic committee needs to ask themselves a simple question:

Does this event involve something that can be measured, weighed, counted, or timed?

If the answer is "No", then it means that you don't have a sport. You have entertainment.

The long jump is a sport. You can measure it.

Weight lifting is a sport. You can weigh it.

The 100 meter freestyle is a sport. You can time it.

Team handball is a sport. You can count it.

Nothing in gymnastics, diving or synchronized swimming meets those criteria.

Call them exhibitions, if you like, but they are no more "sport" than are the opening ceremonies.

how many of china's golds come from exhibitions compared to the US (or any other country for that matter).

Back in prior Olympics they allowed ties in gymnastics. This was also when they were using the 10 point system. Several times a situation occurred where there was a tie for the gold medal & then a 3 way tie for silver, followed by 2 more gymnasts tied for the bronze.

When the scoring system was revamped, the powers-that-be also fixed it so that there wouldn't be anymore of the 6 people on the podium stuff they were running into occasionally.

I watched the routines & thought that (even with the equal start value assigned to the routines) the Chinese gymnast's routine was a little bit harder (more crazy release moves) than Nastia's routine. The Chinese gymnast did have a slight bobble on the dismount, whereas Nastia was rock solid on hers. It is a shame they don't do the ties anymore, as Nastia did a gold medal worthy routine.

Up until her dismount, I thought the British gymnast had the best routine going, but she had a big awkward step on her landing.

P.S. If the winning Chinese gymnast is actually 15, she should win an award for youngest looking 15 year old in the PRC.

There is no difference between the actual tie-break method and that which you propose. They both reward the gymnast whose distribution of scores has the higher variance. That means the determinant for who wins the competition is not the athlete, but the second order statistics of how a panel judged the routine. It also seems backwards since the person who has the least consensus among judges is considered to be the winner (put another way, the advantage goes to the person who some people think did really good and some people think did really bad instead of to the person who everyone agrees did pretty good). Clearly crazy, but no more so than Bela Karolyi. The only solution is to create a computer so smart it can judge gymnastics better than any person could ever dream of.

Don't focus on the tie breaker but the inexperienced Aussie judge who marked Liukin .3 lower than He.

Is the scoring system itself. Daggett said several times he didn't think there should have been a tie to begin with because Luikin's routine was better. But of course this being gymnastics it's purely subjective. Sadly, I don't know if it's possible to come up with a completely objective system. So we'll keep getting these controversies every four years. But that just brings back the viewers I suspect. Much like the BCS seedings or NCAA tournament selections.

While you're off fixing the scoring, how about making it tougher for nine-year-olds with forged birth certificates? The only way to get rid of that problem is to change the scoring rules that favor the tiniest girls.

Mr. Kaufman hit the nail on the head when he stated that should two gymnasts tie, they each should have to redo their routine. Head head, sudden death gymnastics.

Anyone who has ever been a competitive gymnast knows that the sport (yes, it's a sport, a very, very difficult sport) lives and dies by the gymnasts ability to perform consistently. Gymnasts train with repetition, routine after routine after routine, and the rules of competition should support that.

If you tie for a gold medal, you should be able to do that routine, over and over, just as perfectly as you did it the first time. If not, you get the silver.

How about getting the original scoring correct. He's performance was worse than Liukin's by a number of standards easily visible by the naked eye. The initial scoring has been atrocious at this Olympics. The vaulter who ended up on her knees and still got a bronze was the worst example of that. They were just lucky that there were not more ties.

The scoring gives way too much credit to the degree of difficulty, and the scores are way too low. Degree of difficulty comes in twice. If an easy program is executed perfectly, it should receive a high score. In practice, the score of an easy program is downgraded because it is easy. Thus the degree of difficulty element is considered twice and poor performances of very difficult programs are receiving golds over perfect performances of less difficult programs. It tarnishes the sport.