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An anonymous Chinese speaking hacker known as Stryde Hax has been blogging his search for information on Olympic Bars Champion He Kexin’s real birth date. UPDATE – his name is Mike Walker.

A consultant with a high-tech security firm, Stryde Hax states that He’s age can hardly be called controversial anymore, writing Wednesday, “At this point, I believe that any reasonable observer already understands that age records have been forged.”

His findings are linked from the highly respected website Ars Technica:

… Google, rather suspiciously, has been scrubbed clean—searching the engine’s cache reveals references to He Kexin, but He’s name and data have been removed. As for Baidu, the main search function returns only government-approved data—a spreadsheet that purports to show information on Kexin has also been deleted—but checking the engine’s cache proves that a copy of the document is still preserved. He Kexin’s age, as listed in the preserved copy of an official Chinese document? 14. …

read more – Baidu cache offers more evidence of underage Chinese gymnasts

Olympic Champion He Kexin – by Grace Chiu

Sooner or later, I expect, it will be confirmed that He Kexin was too young to compete at the Beijing Olympics.

Next question. If that happens, should she lose the Gold medal?

I think not. A better solution would be to punish the Chinese Gymnastics Association. Certainly He Kexin did not falsify her documents. The coaches and administration are mostly to blame.

… Of course, all this is hypothetical. There is not enough proof … yet.

(via Live.Breath.Love Gymnastics)

The best article I’ve seen yet on the new code of points …

Athens was a disaster for Men’s Judging. It was far, far better 4yrs later in Beijing with the new open ended judging scheme. The best were separated from the rest by the difficulty A-score.

But it’s not perfect:

… “The B panel is always the problem,” said John Roethlisberger, a three-time U.S. Olympian who is now the FIG’s athlete representative. “The B panel scoring is where they’re not getting that separation. … ”

Grandi has been harping on execution since the new code took effect in 2006, saying he didn’t want it to become an X-Games-like competition where gymnasts tried harder and harder skills with little regard for how they looked. There’s a reason it’s called artistic gymnastics, and Grandi said he will instruct the technical committees to make it an even bigger priority in the upcoming quadrennium.

“The new system is certainly not perfect yet, but we’re on a good way, taking us to a very positive solution,” he said. “The first thing we will closely have to look at is to make some corrections in the balance between difficulty and execution. At this time, we’re trending a little bit too much toward the difficulty.”

That’s fine to emphasize that, Roethlisberger said. But it seems as if too many judges are more concerned that their marks fall within the average than the mark itself.

“They need to get judges to judge the B panel the way it’s written in the code. I don’t know how you’re ever going to get them to do it,” Roethlisberger said. “Again, I’m not saying the results are wrong. That’s the part of the system—they’ve got to find a way to let judges judge, and not let them be worried about whether they’re in the average or not.” …

FIG President Gives Gymnastics Judges High Marks – Nancy Armour on Gymnast.com

Roethlisberger is right. Especially in the Women’s competition, judges “boxed” the B-scores. A fantastic routine scores 9.0 while an average routine scores 8.0. There should be as great a separation between the B-scores as the A-scores if execution is going to be weighted as important as difficulty.

Expect Australian judge Helen Colaguiri to box the scores next time after getting so much flack over a comparatively large 0.3 range between Ke Hexin and Nastia Liukin on Bars.

Chris Grabowecky, one Olympic judge not afraid to put up the score he feels is correct, regardless if the rest of the panel sees it differently.

Was Bars in Beijing the greatest Olympic Gymnastics Final ever?

So says Andrew Thornton:

… far and away the best bars final of any competition in history – maybe the best final of any event in history! I know that’s a big statement, but I believe it to be absolutely true – and I’m not talking about the results, I’m talking about the gymnastics. No two routines were even alike – every single routine was completely different than the one before. We had the unique opportunity here to see many of the best bar workers to ever walk the planet all competing in the same final, and all hitting their routines. The only thing missing was a few stuck landings. …

If you watched NBC TV in the States, you’d know the biggest controversy in America was whether Nastia or Ke Hexin should have won the apparatus — after the tie break.

Andrew the Analyst reviewed all the Bars routines and concluded … that the Bronze medalist Yang Yilin actually should have taken home the Gold.

source

… Yang Yilin had the exact same A-score as Liukin and He Kexin (7.7), and there is simply no way you can convince me that she had the most deductions of the three. In fact, I felt she should have won by a few tenths. …

read the entire article – Cracking the Controversy – Gymnast.com

Normally I defer to Andrew. But, in this case, the greatest Bars final in history, I think the judges got it right.

Gold – He Kexin
Silver – Nastia Liukin
Bronze – Yang Yilin

Andrew’s analysis counts a 0.5 deduction for both Nastia and He on a pirouette. That’s too severe, in my opinion. But watch all the final routines and decide for yourself.

Of the 10 Olympic gymnastics apparatus, the new code has worked best on Bars. It’s astonishing what these gymnasts have been capable of doing.

Leave a comment with your own ranking of that Final. Certainly Beth Tweddle had the most “difficult” routine.

related: Nastia’s score correct, says beleaguered judge

Cassidy was just featured in her local paper, happy to have a photo of her with Nastia at the WOGA gymnastics camp earlier this summer:

It’s not every day that an 8-year old from Anaconda, Mont., … can say that they are friends with an Olympic champion (Liukin won the women’s all-around late Thursday night), but for Cassidy McAlpine, that’s just another day in the gym.

What happened next is the stuff of fairy tales for a young gymnast.

After the first seven-hour day of training, when all the rest of the campers headed for the swimming pool, Cassidy asked if, instead of swimming, she could drive over to the Plano facility, where Nastia was training, in order to watch the current world champion. Valeri, who remembered Cassidy from her first visit, gave her permission.

“Her dad Keith drove her over, and, with Valeri’s urging, Cassidy just sort of walked right through the observation area, in to the gym and plunked herself down,” … “During the run-up to the Games, Nastia was training by herself, so the gym was pretty quiet. After about 10 minutes of watching from the sidelines, Cassidy just got up, walked over to where Nastia was getting ready to do uneven bars, and started talking to her.”

It’s unlikely that most gymnasts would have had the guts to walk across the gym of her idol — uninvited — during practice, but Cassidy isn’t your average 8-year-old. …

read the entire article – CDA Press

Cassidy isn’t the only little girl inspired by the Olympics. There are hundreds of thousands just like her.

Our weekend dash to climb the second highest mountain in Washington State was a ton of fun. AND we did get to the summit.

Here’s Lisa Adlard from Funtastics on the windy summit.

trip report – …and so they pressed on – Dave Adlard

This does not happen often. An open call audition. That means anyone can try out for Cirque du Soleil. (Normally you must have a personal invitation from Casting.)

September 21 and 22 in Las Vegas.

I was there as an observer last Fall. My advice is that you do not go unless you have super physical ability, especially strength. Very good form and “line”. Athletes with multiple talents are more interesting for Cirque. (For example, a gymnast who is also a great surfer. A great bar worker also trained in dance. Etc.)

Since attending audition is at your own expense, best practice is to submit a demo video to Cirque du Soleil online. It should include, for example, for Men’s Artistic Gymnastics:

• A presentation to the camera (including a face and full-body shot): tell us about yourself and your specialty, your background and experience – 1 minute;

• Flexibility (the three splits, bridge, shoulders, pike position) – 1 minute;

• Strength (no leg rope climb, chin-ups, piked leg lifts) – 2 minutes;

• Basic floor acrobatics (handstand, walkovers, handsprings, standing flips, etc.) – 1 minute;

• Your skills on the high bars (releases, dismounts) and parallel bars – 1 minute, 30 seconds;

• Your most difficult trampoline dismounts as well as linked skills – 1 minute 30 seconds;

• Your most difficult tumbling passes – 1 minute

• Recent competition footage (High bars, floor and parallel bars – mention date).– 2 minutes;

• A dance improvisation. Show us how you move, let yourself go. Any style of dance, use the space and use your imagination! – 30 seconds;

• A demonstration of your skills in another discipline, if applicable – 30 seconds.

Details on the very cool Cirque casting site.

disclosure – I love Cirque du Soleil

Lu Chunlong of China became the first Chinese man to win an Olympic title …

Lu (C), Burnett (L) and Dong (Photo credit: Xinhua – source)

full results

SWEET – Jason Burnett takes SILVER. The world record holder for difficulty — and the man who has done more difficult things on a trampoline than anyone in history — gets it together in the big show.

Wow.

Congratulations to Jason and his coach Dave Ross.

The world needs get to work on execution if they want to rival China in the future.

After I said all those nice things about Tim Daggett, he was one of those who jumped to the conclusion that the judging panels in the Olympic Finals were probably “inexperienced” since they were independent. How else would they make the “mistake” of ranking Nastia second?

Nastia Liukin, He Kexin (Photo credit: Getty Images)

I saw it as a knee jerk reaction of the American media to He Kexin from China getting the gold over Nastia Liukin from the USA in a tiebreaker. They both scored 16.725 with a start of 7.7.

A friend of mine was on the Bars judging panel, Avril Enslow from New Zealand. She’s been judging internationally since 1980 and has been category 1 expert for 16 years. This is her 4th Olympics. She’s judged 9 World Championships. Avril’s in the gym full time as Executive Officer and coach of one of the largest clubs in the Southern Hemisphere.

Anyone who knows Avril would agree that she’s one of the most experienced, expert and efficient judges in the World.

Nastia was close to the low bar in her Pak and was deducted for her kip pirouette which turned past handstand. Her dismount, though much improved, is still very deductable. He Kexin had minor deductions too, but fewer.

For the record, Avril had a B-score of 9.0 for Nastia. And 9.1 for He Kexin. She stands by those scores and by the final ranking in the tie break.

If you want to see the scores for each judge for yourself, click through to Gymnast.com.

And please leave a comment if you want to argue it the other way. As a “fan” I prefer Nastia’s routine since it has more variety and drama. But as a judge, watching repeatedly in slow motion, it’s difficult to disagree with the final ranking.

The legend Li Xiaopeng did win Parallel Bars as many, including myself, had hoped.

World Champion Fabian Hambuechen made mistakes to finish Bronze on his speciality, Horizontal Bar. It really was a bad Olympics for the future superstar. But he’ll have many more Olympic medals to come, I’m sure.

click through to Gymnast.com for larger images of the results

Even better, click through to Steve McCain’s live blogging of the last day of finals. I particularly like the part where he says he’ll “throw this laptop” if Zou Kai wins.”

Many are thinking we need post every judge’s score from major competitions. Gymnast.com has done that for Beam, the final apparatus final in the Olympics.

click through for a larger image

I’m very happy Shawn finally got her GOLD. She’s an Olympic Champion.