Some things leave you slack jawed

[kandrathe]

I don't know too much about the specific standards that are used, but it seems clear that they're not specific enough. Are judges allowed to watch replays before scoring? Are they encouraged to? It seems like gymnastics might be a place where replays could be used well (as opposed to, say, basketball where every play could potentially get bogged down if referees always had to go to the tape). The announcers kept talking about how participants weren't given much credit for attempting new techniques that were more difficult than the ones currently used. Since the sport has moved forward, and many moves that used to be daring have become commonplace, perhaps it's time to reconsider the starting scores assigned to routines? There were a lot of tie scores. If difficulties were spread out further, it would be easier to differentiate between the good routines and the great ones.

If we are going to have "sports" that are judged rather than measured, (and there are any number of current olympic sports from gymnastics to figure skating that require a judge to make a determination of difficulty, skill and artistry) then we are going to have to live with the subjectivness of judges. They already have a panel of judges who all have to watch and score the event, toss out the highest and lowest scores, and average the remainder. But, when two individuals can do entirely different routines on the high bar and tie for first place (other than two 10.0's), I dunno what more you can do to differentiate. Maybe change to a 100 point scale to allow for greater gradiations. So then it might have been 95.364 versus 95.363. :)

But, please! No instant replay in any sport. Trust the refs and the judges or get better ones, but don't devolve sport into a video analysis of individual performance.