she’ll NEVER receive those scores internationally

Many have been linking to an excellent Balance Beam Situation commentary:

Over the years, we’ve all seen any number of hilarious scores showered upon US gymnasts at domestic competitions, and this storied history of ridiculing hyper-American judging has cultivated the widespread assumption that less biased international judges would never succumb to such silliness.

At times in the past, this has been the case, but in the last few years, the international judges have seemed willing to evaluate the execution of routines with that we would normally consider an American lens. …

… “she’ll never receive those scores internationally” needs to be tempered as a credo because it lately amounts to only a tenth or two of difference for most gymnasts rather than a dramatic break that blows up potential scoring and because it is far from consistent, even among the various chosen ones. It has been quite person-specific. …

read more on BBS – On Home Scoring, the Elite Kind

If you click through you’ll see the statistics are not at all rock solid.

Yet I feel the same way. The best American gymnasts in the past looked GREAT at home, … but not nearly so good once compared directly with the top Chinese, Romanians and Russians. Scores tended to drop.

(It’s still that way with the American men. Uncle Tim, please compare ACTUAL scores on Rings and Pommels for team USA at Worlds 2013 with the scores they got at U.S. Championships 2013.)

Now that the American women are in reality the #1 team, that’s no longer the case.

YES … there are many, many other variables. 🙂