Scoring at 2023 World Championships

[navyblue]

How can we give you the 8.5+ you deserve when we rarely/never give that to top competitors.”

See, this has become one of the most obviously failed promises of the open-ended code of points. Since 2006, we should have seen many examples of simpler, super well-executed routines scoring near the top of the E-score pile in a given meet. That basically never happened/happens.

Instead, there is a super linear correlation between highest D and E scores. This makes a certain sense, as those gymnasts truly do tend to be superior on their events, but it’s waaayyyy too tightly correlated to represent a true separation of powers between the judging panels.

Aleah Finnegan (really, plenty of post-elite NCAA gymnast with strong choreo should be able to be exemplars for super high E) was the perfect gymnast to hypothetically break that correlation but the judges fucked it up royally!

 

[navyblue]

Watching with a thorough awareness of how the judges are perceiving the execution makes me feel like complete shit.

My people! Rage on.

I get Aleah down to about 8.2 if I take the tenth for the leg separation every handspring (to be fair, when the angle allows me to see it, it does seem to be there),

Well, it’s really not fair, because it’s simple for most of us to reproduce the mid-to-low-8 E scores that top FX competitors got, without having to scrutinize legs on back handsprings. Simpler routines should not have the goal posts moved to where they’re getting over-judged. It’s like the judges get antsy when they see a simpler, well-executed routine. This creates score bunching and undermines the hypothetical separation of powers between D and E.

 

[Denn]

Simpler routines should not have the goal posts moved to where they’re getting over-judged.
-navyblue, October 6, 2023

This needs to be a memorandum to the entire WAG international judging community — just this quote alone.

 

[Denn]

I propose that, after Worlds, we rejudge all the exercises using a better system of deductions — same rules, but not the .1, .3, .5 set-up — and see what it looks like in practice.

We can do it with one of the Event Finals

 

[KristyJ]

Well, it’s really not fair, because it’s simple for most of us to reproduce the mid-to-low-8 E scores that top FX competitors got, without having to scrutinize legs on back handsprings. Simpler routines should not have the goal posts moved to where they’re getting over-judged. It’s like the judges get antsy when they see a simpler, well-executed routine. This creates score bunching and undermines the hypothetical separation of powers between D and E.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean here. It’s not fair to take a deduction that exists on the handsprings? I’d think that would be less offensive than the “I have to take more on artistry than I want to.” Frankly I would take for the leg separations I saw on the handsprings at any level.

 

[Denn]

I’m not exactly sure what you mean here. It’s not fair to take a deduction that exists on the handsprings? I’d think that would be less offensive than the “I have to take moNre on artistry than I want to.” Frankly I would take for the leg separations I saw on the handsprings at any level.

I interpreted navyblue to be saying that, if we deduct for minor leg separations on back handsprings, the top difficult exercises would score lower than the scores we are seeing.

 

[KristyJ]

I interpreted navyblue to be saying that, if we deduct for minor leg separations on back handsprings, the top difficult exercises would score lower than the scores we are seeing.

Ah, well, yes, I would want to deduct for the same error on all routines that had the same degree of leg separation (in this case, well more than the 1" example we used above).

 

[Aeris]

Leg separation for handsprings on floor isn’t a thing in brevet training.

 

[navyblue]

I interpreted navyblue to be saying that, if we deduct for minor leg separations on back handsprings, the top difficult exercises would score lower than the scores we are seeing.

Correct. If you’re gonna deduct handsprings, by all means, go nuts. But I think @KristyJ as much admitted that she only looked to the back handsprings in order to reverse engineer an 8.0 E score for Aleah. (For the record, she only does 2 BHS, so it doesn’t account for much regardless. Her FHS is fine).

And again I’m not trying to call you out at all I think this is a basic human psychology issue that’s resulting in some bad judging outcomes.

 

[navyblue]

Adding Sarah Voss’ all around final vault score to this top list of complaints.
9.2 was ridiculous for a vault that clean, unpiked, legs together, no pre-flight leg separation, with a 1 tenth hop.

 

[onodian]

deducting bhs was always my counterexample to counter the argument than an 8.8 was ok for Komova for her tap before the dismount, yet here I am with Aly as FX Olympic champion with her gnarly bhs that weren’t deducted cause “that’s not a thing”.

Whichever, really, but it needs to be consistent.

 

[onodian]

I propose that, after Worlds, we rejudge all the exercises using a better system of deductions — same rules, but not the .1, .3, .5 set-up — and see what it looks like in practice.

We can do it with one of the Event Finals

We should do the AA vaults. That’s kind of clear, one element, it’s OUTRAGEOUS, cause some of these scores were like wtf, and there’s a good range of difficulty

 

[KristyJ]

Correct. If you’re gonna deduct handsprings, by all means, go nuts. But I think as much admitted that she only looked to the back handsprings in order to reverse engineer an 8.0 E score for Aleah. (For the record, she only does 2 BHS, so it doesn’t account for much regardless. Her FHS is fine).

And again I’m not trying to call you out at all I think this is a basic human psychology issue that’s resulting in some bad judging outcomes.

No, I would take those on a level three routine, too, frankly. I would not not take that. I more pointed it out because 1) it’s a frequently missed error when fans are watching, and 2) the angle made it such that it was not possible to see if they were all the same. I would hope the judges would have a better view (though where they sit them now… who knows), but I made the assumption the same error existed on the one I couldn’t see because of video angle. This is not a psychological bias. Her legs were like four inches apart where I could see, it was not ambiguous.

 

[ruby]

Here’s a routine I think should have garnered a much higher E score but barely surpassed 8.0

While I do agree that this routine is underscored, the choreo left me quite underwhelmed. It’s actually quite simple and not very creative. Yes, she smiles a lot but that’s about it.