Alicia Sacramone ROBBED!?!?

[TheCoachsCoach]

After watching the women tackle the vault tonight, I am disgusted.

I am disgusted with the judging, disgusted with the biasness, disgusted with the fact that not a single coach protested. No, there shouldn't be any arguing at the Olympics but how much illegality can be tolerated? The girl placed 4th, what were they going to do at that point? THROW her out of Beijing? Right.

Alicia Sacramone deserved a medal. She deserved Silver/Bronze IF NOT GOLD. Why? One athlete falls with horrid execution onto the vault, one hand ahead of the other, placed wrong - deduction. She fell on the second vault, deduction. Her first vault was WAY TOO HIGH of a score, regardless its difficulty.

Another gymnast, a veteran of 5 Olympic games, hopped as much as Alicia did and still placed above her. And then we have the gymnast who landed out of bounds twice.

How on earth did these athlete's get a medal above Alicia? It's beyond me. They made that young girl sit there and watch the degradation of her art, of her skill, of her execution. They tore it apart like vultures to carrion. I am completely disgusted. Alicia was robbed in Beijing on vault. She deserved so much more than 4th place. It was a slap in the face. Shame on Beijing. SHAME.

 

[Billy]

I COMPLETELY agree. I think a lot of the scoring was biased, not only on vault but on everything. Vault was just really over the top, though. My DH just shakes his head and says "she's from the US. That's why her score is so low. If she were from China, or anywhere else, she'd have the gold."

 

[Deleted member 1703]

I am not sure why you think that when the judges are from many different countries.

The judges for the vault final were:

A1 Link Removed Link RemovedFrance
A2 Link Removed Link RemovedRussian Fed.
B1 Link Removed Link RemovedNetherlands
B2 Link Removed Link RemovedAustria
B3 Link Removed Link RemovedFinland
B4 Link Removed Link RemovedColombia
B5 Link Removed Link RemovedSweden
B6 Link Removed Link RemovedRomania
Line 1 Link Removed Link RemovedChina

There was only 1 Chinese judge - and they were assigned to the line.

It would be interesting to see the deductions so that we can understand the final points, but I am not sure that these are ever available.

 

[Gym-Nice-tics]

Cheng Fei's vault

My biggest thing is Cheng Fei's second vault- not only does she crash on her knees when she lands, but she also doesn't REALLY complete the vault that she was supposed to compete. Her twists prior to hitting the vault were incomplete and she truly should not have gotten credit- or been whacked appropriately- for it.

But that's how the judging has been this whole meet.

 

[lccmac]

What gets to me is that unless the Chinese gymnast goes first on an apparatus, she wins. I try to never tell my daughter at her meets that "That judge didn't give you a good score...." or whatever, because that's just being a bad sport. But when it happens time after time, with anyone who isn't chinese...hmmmmmm. I honestly believe if Shawn and Nastia had done their AA floor routines before the Chinese girl - she would have won.

I just really hope Cheng Fei knows she didn't really earn that medal - and no one outside of China thinks she did either.

 

[flippersmom]

Scoring

I understand the whole code of points and rewarding gymnast for more difficulty, but I really miss the simply 10.0 score when a routine with a fall never would have won. Especially vault. It just makes it look so incomplete. It's like try this really difficult vault, but if you can't land it, that's ok, you get enough in difficulty score to win anyways!

 

[midwestgymmom]

I think the judges know what country they are in.

 

[Billy]

I don't think it's the country the judges are from. It is the country they are in. Everyone, the IOC included, is in desperate fear of upsetting China. I certainly hope the Olympics never go there again. I'm already looking forward to 2012 in London. I don't expect to see these issues there.

 

[TheCoachsCoach]

I don't think it has anything to do with the country either. All of the judges are from different places. It has to do with who you DON'T want to see win and who you would much rather see win.

On the Floor Exercise Shawn Johnson made a slight step on one of her passes (I believe it was her 3rd tumble pass landing). Nastia made no such errors, and if she did they were minor deductions. The judging scored her so incredibly low with a 15.4xx and I was astonished. They were leaving room for someone else to beat Shawn Johnson's score, and someone did -- to their standards. I agree the girl that did take gold on Floor was an excellent routine but it was NOT cleaner than Shawn's or Nastia, and while she deserved a medal, she got the wrong one.

The judging has been biased and has used the new scoring system to completely obliterate fairness. Never in an art THAT I AM familiar with has an artists INTENTION been respected more than their RESULT.

If Leonardo DaVinci was intending on painting the Mona Lisa and instead ended up with some dirt and paint speckled on the canvas, would we still be calling it a masterpiece? I can't even continue to watch this anymore, that's how bad this has gotten. Horrible.

Am I complaining? Yes. Am I whining? No. I actually think some of the Chinese gymnasts were exceptional, but its questionable when you see gymnasts you haven't heard of through out the entire competition suddenly be in the FINALS --- that says something about the judging. Gymnasts were given a pass to compete against the top of the Elite for the possibility of beating them. The Dos Santos girl was a terrible mess on floor (despite her routine was insanely difficult), WHAT pray tell, was she doing in a FINALS? lol God help them all lol.

 

[momof2gymgirls]

I agree - the judging has been horrible and its obvious that they are favoring the Chinese. Did anyone see Bella last night? He had tears in his eyes he was so upset about Alicia's score.

 

[gymdog]

I don't think Alicia was going to win gold. Also, the person in question stepped out of bounds on the second on and didn't land out of bounds. In WAG you just have to land in and "the line is in" as Tim is so fond of telling us all. She had her right foot out on the first vault but on the second one both feet were in and she stepped over the line.

I agree that personally I thought Shawn's routine was going to win before the last score came up, but I didn't think the judging was egregious. Like Bela said, the top 3 were the top 3 and when it's coming down to a relatively small difference then it's hard to know how the judges will prefer to rank those routines. I was surprised that Izbasa's execution score came up higher than Shawn's (IIRC) although I understand her difficulty was higher.

 

[gymgymgymnast08]

I think Alicia should have AT LEAST gotten a bronze medal. I think she got 4th by .025? And she was .11 something away from gold? She definitely got robbed. I'm not saying she should have gotten gold but definitely bronze or silver.

 

[lannamavity]

I don't hink Sacramone got ripped off at all. She landed both vaults with a 90 degree hip angle and had hops on her landings which had to add up to more than .1 on each vault. Her Baitova was pretty low and sloppy. While she didn't screw up, she had a lot of little issues.

Cheng's Amanar was ROCKED OUT. I haven't really studied it, but at first glance, I would say it was her best ever...which would make it the best vault of the entire Olympics.

The big bummer is the way the code treats that second vault. Cheng always goes onto the table with an incomplete turn, whether the vault is good or not. She did keep her body relatively straight and completed the twist. The vault was actually about the same height and distance as Hong's. Even with all of the landing deductions, (which are NEVER taken on Nastia's bar dismount...remember??) I'm not sure the score is that out of whack. The judges are just judging using the code they are given. I just don't think that it would benefit anyone enough to give Cheng a bronze medal just because. The code is bad, especially when it comes to falls.

But saying that Sac was "robbed" is a bit much...and she def shouldn't have beaten Hong or Chusovitina.