Quick question for those that follow many Olympic sports, particularly events with judges... What sports only involve judges from countries where none of the participants are from (EX: if a US athlete is in the event, a US judge will not be involved)? I remember the NBC gymnastics crew were mentioning how this was the case for gymnastics, and I thought it was strange (most of the judges were from countries that never produced an Olympic medalist, while the "real experts" wouldn't be allowed to judge the event). I checked out some other events later (diving, synchronized swimming, etc.), and I initially noticed a similar trend. I started to think that the NBC crew was making a big deal out of nothing. But today, I noticed that some judges were scoring athletes from their own countries in those same sports I watched earlier, so it doesn't seem like it is a rule for those sports (unless there were some weird exceptions in my cases...maybe not a rule for qualifying rounds or something). I'm a little late on this, so I apologize if this has been discussed earlier in the thread; I remember it being briefly mentioned (probably right after NBC mentioned it), but it didn't seem to get much discussion. I understand the issue they want to avoid, but if similar sports don't use this system, I don't see why they'd do so in gymnastics. I'd rather have the best of the best judge the competition and just hope that no major bias is involved (as if bias couldn't be involved using the current system). Despite this issue and many more though (most of which were discussed in this thread or others), I really did enjoy the men and women's gymnastics over the last week or so, much more so than I would have expected (didn't watch much of the Olympics in 2004 outside of basketball and track & field). Definitely an interesting and unique sport that provides a lot of excitement (and disappointment), and I did love the amount of sportsmanship on display, at least by the athletes. Of course, I realize it probably isn't the "manliest" of sports...not that I care. I'm looking forward to whatever the sport can offer in 2012, although hopefully they can make a few tweaks to the system to make it a bit less frustrating to understand (a few things can be easily fixed IMO, but what do I know).
TKD judges suck. Lopez chick is out. She should have at least 2 points scored but judges fail to click their little clickers. Such BS!!
As lame as this answer might sound.... I'm sure a quick look up of the sports in question on Wikipedia can get you some answers........maybe
It's the same with Boxing.... clearly better judges are needed for both sports because they obviously do not know how to give points correctly.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/R3NIEbY-aao&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/R3NIEbY-aao&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Apparently Tommy Lee Jones is an alien that enjoys ping pong, and he's done at least 14 of these commercials
Take Diving for example, they took out the highest and lowest scores before they calculate the final score. One of the ways to mitigate the effect from bias.
The previously dominant USA women's softball team just lost the gold medal game to Japan. Too bad. You can't win them all.
they would have lost, they had the 1, 2, and 4 finishers in 2004 including the current and previous gold medalists and they managed to lose to Great Britain due to bad baton passes - they are the definition of underachieving in relays (and on the solo events too, this meet).
It was mentioned that during the EVENT Individual Finals in gymnastics, judges from countries without a participant were used. This is the only time that is in effect during the gymnastics judging.
I was up early enough to catch the last part of the softball game and the U.S. choked away a gold medal. Anybody think they did it on purpose?
To try to keep it as an olympic sport. After this year, because the US is so dominant in it, they are planning to eliminate both baseball and softball. Spoiler But no I don't think they did it on purpose. They've won like a million games in a row, their number was probably just up. Japan was their only competition. And thank you by the way for telling us all that before we got a chance to watch the game, I was going to watch it tonight. oh well
