You may have read accounts of FIG President Grandi’s Press Conference at worlds.
Editorial | Another band-aid from Grandi
That’s The All Around, a site that has closely followed Grandi’s experiments with the Code of Points starting 2006.
I was there and did not leave with the same impression. For one thing, he spoke in broken English rather than being translated. There was not much nuance.
He both stated that the Artistic Codes were not working and that we’ve had enough drastic change.
His idea of dividing the difficulty score by two and adding it to the E-score was simply an example, not a proposal.
One point was clear:
• acrobatic content is weighted too much compared with artistic content
I agree.
Uncle Tim’s data shows that difficulty does not always trump execution, however. Uchimura and Ross are two gymnasts who very well competing against higher start scores. They do not fall.
Solutions are being widely debated.
Women’s judges at Worlds attended a presentation on Artistry led by Armine Barutyan Fong, Carol-Angela Orchard and others. As I said to CA, artistry is by its very definition, subjective.
To me Simone Biles’ Floor routine is artistic as it moves me emotionally. Many others disagree.
I highly doubt that any kind of Code definition of artistry is ever going to work. 😦
Instead, the execution judges must rank gymnasts by quality. Apply the Code as written. The range of E-scores must be greater, not tightly clumped the way they are now.
How do we prevent cheating if E-score range is increased?
Publish individual scores for each judge. Most other referees in sport are subject to the court of public opinion. Why are FIG judges so protected? So unaccountable?
I do like the proposal that E-judges be able to deduct 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 (currently it’s 0.1 or 0.3 or 0.5)
That worked in the past. It would help in the future.
One last thing. Grandi was careful to include the talking point that this is his last term in Office. Conspiracy theorists are still postulating that he plans some kind of Putin strategy in the next election.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 