An interesting interview on The Couch Gymnast magazine with Matt Esler, editor of the currently inactive worldgymrank.com.
Matt did a lot of statistical analysis of international gymnastics results concluding:
… To be blunt, I don’t think the FIG can ever improve the current Code of Points without drastic changes, or even admitting that big swaths of it were a huge mistake.
After the judging fiascos at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, and instead of resigning as the President of the FIG (which would have been the right thing to do), Bruno Grandi implemented the new scoring system to cover his butt. As a serious observer of the sport, one could almost see the panic and rush to put out a new system written right into the Code of Points. …
In general, I’d agree.
Before the catastrophy that was MAG judging in Athens, some of the worst scandals in the history of our sport, I don’t recall Grandi having much interest in the “Fink Code” proposal. (The open ended draft code originally proposed by Hardy Fink.)
http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js
On the other hand, each year I’m getting less strident in my criticism of losing the “perfect 10”.
MAG gymnasts worldwide seem to be handling the challenge relatively well. And numbers of competitors in international WAG competition seem to be going up.
To their credit, the FIG International Press Review – May 8 – 12, 2010 linked to this interview. Kudos.
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