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Judging change puts perfection out of reach
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-11-16 10:23
LONDON, Nov 16 (Reuters) - For almost a century, chasing a perfect 10 has
been the ultimate goal of every gymnast.
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Nadia
Comaneci
| The abiding image of the sport can
be traced back to the 1976 Montreal Games when a petite 14-year-old from
Romania, Nadia Comaneci, created Olympic history by becoming the first gymnast
to score a 10.00 during the women's team competition.
From next season, however, attaining perfection in gymnastics will no longer
be possible.
Just as figure skating was forced to change its age-old 6.0 scoring system
following a judging scandal in the pairs competition at the 2002 Winter Games,
gymnastics had its watershed moment at last year's Athens Olympics.
A spate of disputed medals 15 months ago tarnished the sport and left
officials under no illusion that the scoring format had to be revamped.
As a result, the old method will get its last hurrah at next week's world
championships in Melbourne before being consigned to the scrapheap.
"We are changing the code radically...because the old approach to gymnastics
has become obsolete," former Olympic champion Nellie Kim, who is now president
of the International Gymnastics Federation's (FIG) women's technical committee,
told Reuters in an interview.
"Now the final score could be beyond 10. It could be 12, it could be 17 or
whatever.
"The scores for each exercise are divided into two -- a) difficulty of
content and b) execution. The execution score is always out of 10 points so you
can say in that we've maintained the old system but the final score will be
different."
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