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Aug. 18: One thing's for sure, gymnastics scoring must change
Sunday, August 17, 2008 | Print Entry
From ESPN The Magazine senior writer Alyssa Roenigk:
Not to harp on this new gymnastics scoring system (or, more accurately, to harp on it), but after these Games are over, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) is going to have to re-evaluate the system, beginning with the start values.
Saturday, I spoke with Nadia Comaneci and her husband, 1984 Olympic gymnast Bart Connor, for an espnthemag.com piece regarding the new system. Nadia scored the first "perfect 10," at the 1976 Olympics, so I wanted to know what it was like for her, and Bart, to watch the first Olympics without the possibility of an athlete scoring a 10.
Their thoughts didn't surprise me. They feel the new open-ended scoring detracts from the average fan's understanding of the sport, as well as robs gymnastics of its brand identity. They also fear that with this new system, as Bart put it, "the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer." Meaning athletes who have the ability to learn extremely difficult maneuvers will continually up their start values (A score), but won't have to worry about their execution (B score) of these skills. And they will win doing it.
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