Zhang Chenglong competed only his specialty in the Team Final.
Last competitor. Last apparatus.
He hit.
The host team China won the meet with that routine. He’s a National hero today.
But when his final score was flashed and the score was exactly enough for Team China to win by 0.10, I was angered and outraged. It looked very suspicious to me (and many).
We were in China. The apparatus supervisor was from China. Thousands of local fans were raising the roof with their cheering.
Was the score manipulated?
Were the Execution judges swept up in the moment?
Because the E-score for ZHANG Chenglong was too high.
Click PLAY or watch the big moment on YouTube.
ZHANG – Difficulty 7.500 + Execution 8.466 = 15.966
UCHIMRA – Difficulty 6.900 + Execution 8.500 = 15.400
Click PLAY or watch Kohei on YouTube.
Uchimura’s routine is cleaner. His angles are better. Kohei has fewer unnecessary hand placements. Kohei’s landing is better. The difference is far more than 0.034.
The judges got it wrong.
FIG MTC will review the scores from this meet, as they always do. Perhaps some action will be taken. More likely not.
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Uncle Tim posted the best summary of the JPN vs CHN Team Final – 2014 Men’s World Team Finals: When Difficulty Edges Out Execution:
… Sure, judges will mess up from time to time. They are human – just like the gymnasts. When it is crystal clear that the judges did mess up, they should be castigated.
But was Zhang Chenglong’s high bar score as painfully wrong as the Marian Dragulescu’s 2004 vault score situation?
No. … Don’t be so dramatic. …
Perhaps I did get too wrapped up in the competition myself. Too emotional.
But FIG Judges are not nearly held accountable enough when they make mistakes. I was a Brevet Judge myself for decades.
Here are the official results if you want to do more analysis yourself.
In my opinion Japan were the rightful winners of the Team competition at Worlds 2014. Just as I felt Japan should have finished 4th in Team at the London Olympics. The judges got it wrong there, as well.
And if anyone would like to put up a contrary opinion on this site, I’m happy to post if for you.
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