Inquiry system in Gymnastics

[viennaskater]

I watched the Rhythmic Gymnastics events this weekend and did not know about the inquiry system they have. Here is an interesting article I found about the London Olympics which explains it well:

Explaining the inquiry system that has wreaked havoc on London gymnastics

I personally do not agree with this system and neither did the commentators. It spoils the momentum of the competition. It means that whoever is waiting for their score has to wait even longer while the judges address the inquiry. And the rest of us have to wait too!

Who are these coaches and gymnasts to question the scores? Just imagine if that happened in figure skating, it would be disastrous!

Any thoughts?

And by the way, Linoy Ashram won fair and square. (But of course, the Russians HAD to submit an inquiry!)

 

[anonymoose_au]

It is an interesting system. There are some attempts to control it, it costs money to lodge one (I assume you get it back if the enquiry is successful?).

What I want to know is the amount of inquiries during this Olympics normal? You singled out ROC, but a large number of countries submitted them, in the Team Event I think nearly half the scores were queried by Teams Italy, China, Japan, Ukraine and Belarus.

There were also a lot of successful ones, I'm not sure any changed the outcome, but it's not a good look. Like...the judges can't figure out the difficulty of a routine? Aren't they professionals?

I thought having lots of judges focussing on different things would make the judging easier, but from what I saw it was even more confusing!

Also a lot of sports...maybe even most of them have a system where calls can be questioned, tennis, cricket, basketball... Figure skating could be the odd one out.

 

[macy]

i don't think it's wrong at all for athletes to submit an inquiry. judges are humans and can make mistakes, they aren't machines. if they messed up then by all means, give the athlete the score they earned. Aly Raisman won a bronze in London (on beam i think?) after submitting an inquiry and her score was changed.

 

[ladyjane]

I recall quite a few discussions on this forum about the wish for such a system in FS as there are many complaints about the judging. However, there are also voices that state that the competitions would take even longer if many inquiries were submitted. It seems the RG case, whether at these OG or otherwise, does show it takes a lot of time. And many people also complain when the judges take a long time to eventually come to score. If there could be a way to introduce such a thing, but without the time problem - perhaps it woud be worthwhile trying out. The only way to do that, would be to have a seperate set of people to look at the scores while the competition continues, the original judges judging the next competitor, and then change the score for the complainant (if that is the outcome) later. There are certain problems with that too.

Having said all that, I really wouldn't know if this OG were any different than others with regard to the number of inquiries in RG. I like watching RG but I don't understand the scoring. at. all.

 

[cohen-esque]

It used to be possible in figure skating to challenge tech calls within a short window after the competition ended—because you have to wait for the protocols to come out to know about a mistake—if the panel had misidentified an element, although I don’t believe it’s ever been allowed for skaters to challenge things like URs, etc.

The only incident I recall is at a GP event a few years ago where someone, I think Ross Miner, inquired because the tech panel had called their 3Lz as a 2Lz. The scores were changed and iirc 3rd and 4th place were swapped. People complained about it being unfair to the other skater and they changed the rules so now it isn’t allowed to challenge anything.

FIG’s inquiry system is basically like this, too. Gymnasts aren’t allowed to inquire about their Execution score, only the Difficulty. It’s actually probably more common for the score to go down than up, and most of the time it doesn’t change.

 

[Amei]

In terms of figure skating and getting a review/inquiry system I think its a situation of whichever way they were to go - some people will be unhappy with the decision. I know another sport, bullriding, that allows challenges to judges calls and for a long time when they implemented it the rider would be charged a financial penalty if they lose the challenge so it limited any frivolous challenges. I would be interested to see the parameters if the ISU ever looked at implementing a challenge system, they could always implement it for an Olympic cycle and its a complete mess do away with it; for the most part I'm going to say 'it doesn't hurt to try'.

 

[purplecat]

A question about the inquiries in gymnastics. I know they can only ask to have the difficulty re-evaluated. Is it possible for the review panel to say - oh yeah we did make a mistake and it should be lower? I mean is that a possible risk or will the score only be either unchanged or higher? Just curious!

 

[moonvine]

A question about the inquiries in gymnastics. I know they can only ask to have the difficulty re-evaluated. Is it possible for the review panel to say - oh yeah we did make a mistake and it should be lower? I mean is that a possible risk or will the score only be either unchanged or higher? Just curious!

Yes. It can be lower.

 

[surimi]

Only partly related to inquiries, but since I am just a causal fan of gymnastics without any tech knowledge, does anyone know what Daiki's rings deduction in men's all-around was for? Our commentators couldn't figure it out, and the inquiry was rejected.

 

[cohen-esque]

Only partly related to inquiries, but since I am just a causal fan of gymnastics without any tech knowledge, does anyone know what Daiki's rings deduction in men's all-around was for? Our commentators couldn't figure it out, and the inquiry was rejected.

There's an element he does where he swings around between the rings in a tucked position and my best guess is that they didn't give him credit for that, because he had noticeably bent arms at one point. It would be harsh because it was brief and I don't think they were *quite* bent enough to lose credit, but it was the thing I saw that could have lost him exactly 0.3 in D, and it's also the main thing different from his qualification.

Less likely but possible is that he actually gained 0.1 on a hold somewhere and then lost 0.4 on his dismount. He was going for a double-twisting double tuck, but really it kind of became a full-twisting layout + full twisting tuck-- which isn't in the Code, but there are two possible "downgraded" versions that they could have given it if they were picky and both would have cost him 0.4 in D. But honestly lots of gymnasts have bad form in their dismounts and in double saltos generally while still getting credit for them. (But this one might explain why it took so long...)

 

[surimi]

There's an element he does where he swings around between the rings in a tucked position and my best guess is that they didn't give him credit for that, because he had noticeably bent arms at one point. It would be harsh because it was brief and I don't think they were *quite* bent enough to lose credit, but it was the thing I saw that could have lost him exactly 0.3 in D, and it's also the main thing different from his qualification.

Less likely but possible is that he actually gained 0.1 on a hold somewhere and then lost 0.4 on his dismount. He was going for a double-twisting double tuck, but really it kind of became a full-twisting layout + full twisting tuck-- which isn't in the Code, but there are two possible "downgraded" versions that they could have given it if they were picky and both would have cost him 0.4 in D. But honestly lots of gymnasts have bad form in their dismounts and in double saltos generally while still getting credit for them. (But this one might explain why it took so long...)

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer!