Saturday, August 10, 2024

Protest overrules protest in artistic gymnastics

And while we are still on the Olympics, how about this one: in the  artistic gymnastics women's individual floor finals, American Jordan Chiles was awarded the bronze medal after she protested that her score had been miscalculated by one-tenth of a point, enough to put her just above two Romanian gymnasts (who had identical scores), and boosting her from 5th to 3rd in a very tight competition.

Except... the Romanians then protested back again that the American protest was made too late. The rules allow for a protest to be made within one minute of the score announcement, and Ms. Chiles' protest came after one minute and four seconds! So, the American protest was disallowed, and Chiles went back to 5th place (and no medal).

Crazy stuff, but I guess rules are rules. To their credit, the Romanians, probably embarrassed by the optics of their claim, actually suggested that the two Romanians and Chiles share the bronze medal three ways, but that's not how the rules work. 

It's no coincidence that most of the controversies in the Olympics (other than those over drug-taking and cheating) occur in the more artistic disciplines where subjective judging is an issue.

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