Or, as Bela Karolyi said, it was a "leep-ov" (rip-off). In last night's women's vault finals, Alicia Sacramone had a chance at redemption. After falling twice in the team competition and possibly costing the US a gold medal, Sacramone had an opportunity to win individual gold on the vault.
She had the bad luck to draw the first slot, meaning that she had to vault before all the other competitors. Her vaults were good, but not great. Alicia started with lower difficulty values than some of the other favorites, so her lower execution scores could really hurt. Luckily, Cheng Fei of China, one of the favorites for gold, landed on her knees on her second vault.
That looked to be the break Sacramone needed to sneak into a medal, but somehow Fei managed to score a 15.050 on a vault where she didn't even land on her feet. Combined with the first vault (which was really good), this pushed her average above Alicia's, effectively killing the American's medal hopes.
So here's the question: how can someone who totally bombs one of her vaults finish ahead of someone who does two good vaults? I know the difficulty scores can skew the results, but it's ridiculous that Fei could score a 15 when she didn't even land the vault.
The NBC announcers seemed confused at the scoring, and Karolyi was very vocal about what he thought was a judging error. Sacramone got robbed of her chance to walk away from the Olympics with an individual medal. Why is the judging in Olympic sports always so crappy?
August 18, 2008
Alicia Sacramone Was Robbed
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She is definitely the face of heartbreak at these Olympics so far, at least for the U.S. I think any doubt over whether she cost us the gold in the team competition was erased with Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin finished 1-2 in the all-around and 2-3 in floor exercises.
She didn't get robbed.
SV greatly determine the value of a routine. The higher the degree of difficulty, the bigger the gymnast's advantage.
If Fei's SV on her two vaults is 0.900 ahead of another gymnast in Vault(.2 for the first v, 0.7 for the second vault, she had a 0.9 advantage over Sac and Chuso).
Therefore Fei can fall and still be ahead of Chuso and Sac. Since a fall is only 0.8, Fei is still 0.1 ahead of those gymnasts who have 0.9 lower for the two vaults after you take the 0.8 deduction for the second vault.
Degree of difficulty(along with execution) is the reason why China is ahead of the World this Olympics, eventhough it sometimes appear that they have more bobbles.
This is very fair is you go with this COP.
It seems fair to you that if Sacramone executes her vault perfectly and Fei falls on her vault that Fei would still get a higher score? How is that fair?
Anyway, Bela claims that there were two major deductions on Fei's vault (the fall and one other) so she should have lost 1.6 on just those deductions.
It really sucks that Sacramone's two falls in team competition made her the goat, but Fei's fall on the vault still got her an individual silver.
Sacramone did get robbed. Higher start value should not mean you can fall and still win; it means you picked a more difficult move and can try to earn more points if you execute it successfully. The judges had no right awarding Fei the high execution number she "earned" on that second vault.
The vault only lasts two seconds and the landing is a major part of it. The landing is also an indicator of how good the vault was - if you are in a bad position for the landing you have not executed the vault well. Fei, who did not fall to her knees but actually landed on them, executed a poor vault as evidenced by the landing. Sacramone was robbed.
She got robbed. A fall may only be a .8 deduction but you have to land on your feet to be able to fall. Fei never got that far! Their should have either been a bigger deduction for exectution or points taken from the start value because she never completed the vault in the air.
These Olympic judges manage to make fools of themselves all the time. The French figure skating judge was an example of the rule - not the exception - in Olympic judging: it is all very corrupt. In this case, the North Korean winner landed outside the stripe on vault one, and the Chinese competitor completely bombed the landing on the second vault, yet both medaled. Funny, the games are in Beijing - imagine that. Hello? It just makes a mockery of the idea of objective judging in what is an inherently subjective discipline. It also makes a mockery of an Olympics with non-partisan judges, free of political bias. I'll stick with the objectively scored sports, thanks - at least there is less possibility of corruption affecting the medal stand. Or just ignore the Olympics altogether - I think members of the site selection committee for Nagano were paid over $1M apiece by Japan to influence that bid, with similar controversy swirling around the SLC winter games...it's tough to take any of it too seriously.
well according to the "secretary general of the International Gymnastics Federation," cheng scored as low as 8.5 in her execution scores implying that they deducted correctly.
i'm not a fan of "Bela Karolyi," he is way too biased for me! as for "biased judges" that's kinda hard since most of the judges aren't even chinese.
Did you also write that biased commentary on the CNN site? You two have no idea how the scoring system works (which is freely available to read) and yet you blame the chinese, the olympic committee and whoever else for Alicia not reaching the bar.
I really felt sorry for Alicia when she didn't get her medals because she obviously works very hard at what she does but it doesn't dismiss the others' effort. See how Shawn hugged Cheng Fei when the latter failed her routines. That's sportsmanship!
You can feel whatever you want to but you can't say that the system isn't fair.
You're surprised that Bela Karolyi is biased? He used to coach the US team, and his wife is the current coach. Of course he's biased.
whatever robbing there was, you made up for it with that last picture...
First you accuse me of not understanding the scoring system and then you say "you can't say that the system isn't fair."
It's certainly possible to understand a scoring system and still claim that it isn't fair. Also, I'm not sure that the scoring system was applied correctly.
Clearly Fei started with a harder vault, and I think everyone would understand if she scored better than Sacramone with a bigger step, or a foot out of bounds, or something like that. The problem is that Fei didn't even complete her vault. Like one of the previous commenters said, you have to land to fall. If you land on your knees, you didn't do the vault. That clearly should be a bigger deduction than if you land on your feet and then fall.
Sacramone should at least have the bronze metel... She had one of the most solid vaults out of all... it was a pretty poor vault final overall anyway...
Fei fell on the individual floor final a little while later and was crying... That was funny
Come one now, Anonymous, it isn't nice to laugh at a 14 year old girl crying.
(can I ask that people post with a name instead of as anonymous? you can just make up a name, but it's easier to respond to what you said if you don't blend into the 25 anonymous commenters)
sorry sorry... don't mean to make fun.
There shouldn't be a 14 year old in the finals for me to make fun of anyway.
Yeah, I was just kidding, the age limit is 16 and the Chinese have been obviously violating it.
This WAS a total "lip off"
having a human error factor on the part of the judges is not what being an olympic champion is about, it's about performing well, not someone else judging how you performed.
bring in the cameras and computer based scoring.
Or you could vote American Idol style and have a Bob Costas run around like Seacrest. That would totally be fair.
yeah she didn't get robbed. I agree with the fact that the scoring is very fair, because if everyone recalls, cheng fei did a perfect first vault and had a 16 point something as her score. That was able to compensate for the ACCURAGE deductions on cheng's 2nd vault.
and sacramone made no major errors but honestly she didn't impress. she had like average 15 point something scores for both vaults.
and that bela guy is melodramatically biased. I mean on TV he was all, "you cannot break the heart of an american girl!!" or something. He just made it sound like the judges should side with sacramone just because she deserves it since she screwed up so bad in the team competition. Olympics are based on SKILL aren't they?
you people can say that the judging system is lame but no one should be claiming that there is BIAS toward china because that is so not true. there are no more chinese judges than judges from any other country. therefore blame the entire system but leave the chinese out of it, please.
I'm not hip to the rules of women's gymnastics, mostly because I'm neither a chick or a pedophile... But in the end, things like gymnastics and figure skating shouldn't be competitive sports unless each and every competitors is required to do the exact same thing. THEN and only then can you compare any competitors... as it is the systems is designed to be flawed and create dissent. Until they make a change to set programs in each event the Olympics should ban them as sports... if someone want to show them as entertainment fine go ahead but don't play like they are some refined sport, they aren't... From what I've read I should go sign up as a mens gymnast, find a routine that has a difficulty of a million and then go trot down the mat and trip all over myself... if you only lose .8 for fall well hell I can't suck at a million point routine and still win.
About as fair as the Olympic baseball extra innings rules. Maybe in London they'll settle things with a dizzy bat race.
Jeremy - Baseball won't be in the London olympics.
Softball won't, either.
Hmm... two sports the USA is supposed to dominate in. Imagine that!
I watched that whole thing with my wife last night. I couldn't believe that someone who landed on her knees even got above a 14, much less a 15. That vault was not worthy of a medal in the least. I haven't seen much I disagree with so far during the olympics, but that was a miscarraige of justice if I 've ever seen one.
For me I will bypass the arguments as they gotten to be a little tiring! If this group of judges wants to be remembered for this, which they will, then let them have their day! They took the shining moments from all three, yes including the gold medalists because it didn't come undisputed, then so be it! What I enjoyed the most out of the evening was the grace at which the young lady accepted second because it was obviously beyond her control and the fact that Alicia got redemption for herself in front of the entire world and there aren't many people in the world that could have executed those faults having had the day she had before! You go Girl, as a matter of fact she became a WOMAN that night! P.S.- GOOD LUCK to the judges finding a new job!
I love how people keep trying to justify this based on the new scoring system. The first thing that you guys can't seem to get through your thick skull is what at least two people already said. She didn't COMPLETE the vault. Therefore, a .8 deduction, without a change in start value, is too low of a deduction.
Second, you talk about how there can't be any bias towards China. If you've been watching how the scoring works, you'd know that the judges score and the technical committee changes that score based on their ridiculous poking and prodding through slow motion replay. You might also notice that the head of the technical committee in the women's gymnastics (which is the only event/sport I've seen so far with a bias) is Chinese. Go figure.
so I could go up there and do an amazing routine and land on my head and still win if the dificulty was high enough? thats not right.
It's terrible. Alicia did get robbed of her medal. The judges must of been on the Chinese payroll. Look at all of the unfair scores the U.S. girls got but all of the China girls had high scores even though they didn't deserve it. Such cheating should not be allowed. Many of the NBC commentators did mention that the Chinese girl should have been docked more but they didn' do their job. Alicia Sacramone was robbed!
She was robbed, period. Like so many have said before me... SHE DID NOT LAND, SO SHE DID NOT FALL. There should be some kind of rule that if you do not land on your feet, there should be a major deduction, or you should be DQed. THIS IS THE OYLIMPICS, you should come with perfected routines. For example, don't do a difficult vault that you haven't been landing. Fei had been having troubles with that particular vault, but she tried it just to get that higher start value. The second she landed on her knees, it should have been DQed.. in no way should she have a medal for such a disgraceful vault.
I really feel bad for how things have gone down for Alicia Sacramone at these Olympics, but this to me is more about how a gymnast [Chinese or other] can land on their knees and score a 15.anything. It's ludicrous. Like someone anonymously said above, if the vault has a high enough start value, can they just land on their heads and still score in the 15s??? That'd make for some pretty interesting future Olympics. "YES!!! She goes for the septtouple back somersault!!! AND YES!!! SHE LANDS ON HER HEAD!!! IT'S A 16.755!!!" Fun to watch, but any circus clown can do it.
I didn't read any of the comments. Too many.
I'll say she was robbed, but it wasn't a total leep-ov. The judges could have scored the Chinese girl lower, but for whatever reason gave here lenient scoring.
Sometimes people see fouls in basketball differently, or holding in football. That's why it's a judgment call, and this whole sport is based on judging.
I don't think, as Bela claimed, they HAD to take off .8 for the initial error in her vault, whereas they did have to take off .8 deduction for stepping over the line on the landing.
Carissa mentions the "Oylimpics". I'd like to see those just so Israel has a shot at a few more medals.
ryan: you should check your facts before mixing race and nationality with accusations of bias.
The head of the Women's Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee (the "chinese" judge you noticed flitting back and forth between the judging tables) is Nellie Kim (full name: Nellie Vladimirovna Kim). She's a celebrated Russian gymnast (of partial soviet/korean ancestry).
I'm not too surprised by the results. If you reduce difficulty that much you can't expect to win. Fei lost a lot of points for missing the landing but if you start that much in front before deductions you can afford to. Had she nailed the vault she would have been low 16s so she lost at least a full point from deductions, probably more like 1.2. People are acting like she only lost 0.8 and the rest of her deductions (which are much lower) weren't counted. That isn't the case at all.
Sacramone didn't 'execute' her vaults. They were okay but also had deductions. I was surprised she was getting mid 15s. Maybe the judges were scoring high but it was high for everyone. If you start yourself that far back and aren't absolutely perfect you aren't going to medal. She wasn't perfect and she didn't medal.
If her vaults were mid 15s with her deductions Fei's would have needed to be scored at 16.4 if it was perfect(because of the higher diffculty and the deductions that Sacramone took)and 16.2 if it had the same number of deductions a Sacramone (remember, 0.7 higher start value). It scored a 15.0. That's an extra 1.2 points of deductions over Sacramone. That is an accurate score based on Sacramone's scores. Again, if the judges were scoring high, they were doing it for everyone and no one was robbed.
Alicia's start values were too low to compete with the others who had higher difficulties for both their vaults. It would have been hard for her to medal with the level of difficulty of her vaults, however good her execution was, and her execution was not as impressive as some of the others. Cheng Fei may have fallen but she got the necessary deductions. When many of the men fell off the pommel horse in the men's all-around final, they had scores from the 14s to low 15s, so Cheng Fei's score is comparable and not unreasonable. Her start values for the two vaults just gave her a huge lead over Alicia. I feel sorriest for Anna Pavlova, who's had an unfortunate Olympics, vaulted well but her second vault was scored zero for performing before the green light went on.
Thank you, nameless, faceless people who said the same thing, yet neither of whom recognized those who might argue (Bela) that the judging was not consistent or fair.
If we accept at face value that Fei got .8 off for the landing and .4 off for the beginning of her vault (when her hands were misplaced on the horse...if that was in fact the problem), can you articulate why .4 is a reasonable deduction? Bela argues that .8 would have been a fair and consistent deduction for that infraction.
Anyway, all that to say it's reasonable to say that she was robbed, and reasonable to say that the judging was fair.
Anyone else see last night's Balance Beam finals? Fei got some really questionable scoring AGAIN. Not as aggregious as the vault, but still pretty blatantly positive given what she did. I can't remember the last time I yelled at the tv for a bad call for something other than a Ravens game, so I guess its at least fun to watch, but its very frustrating to see such things.
Alicia Sacramone totally robbed. No reason why someone who lands on her knees, shouldn't get deducted 2 .08 deductions. Anyone who knows vault knows that. The execution needed to be much lower. You deserve bronze Alicia, though we know you wanted more - Justin Cornet
I can't believe the Chinese girl who landed on her shins on the vault dismount 2 out of 2 times get a bronze over Sacramone...
"CHING CHONG CHING CHONG" - Rosie O'Donnell, "unbiased" Chinese Olympic Jodge
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