overheard in providence

If horseracing is the sport of kings, then surely bowling is a … very good sport as well.”

Truer words have never been spoken by fictional athlete and animated gadabout Homer Simposon, but alas, neither horseracing nor bowling are in the Olympics. Instead, we’ll have to make due with gymnastics (also 35 other sports).

Gymnastics gets quite a bit of coverage here in the US, but I have mixed feelings. Certainly the level of athleticism involved is quite high, but the scoring, if not completely subjective, is hardly an exact science. In 2004 for instance, men’s olympic gymnastics was marred by controversy, leading a Canadian judge to evenutally admit he was pressured into boosting Alexei Nemov’s score in the Men’s High Bar Finals, an Olympic outrage to be sure.

Since then, the gymnastics scoring system has gotten a complete overhaul, meaning no more perfect 10’s. Instead a routine’s total score, which is usually between 15 and 17, is the sum of an “A score” and a “B score”. The A score is calculated in advance from a routine’s 10 most difficult elements, plus bonuses for transitions between these elements (except in the case of the vault, where the score just comes from the whole twisty-flippy-vault-move). The B score is calculated during a routine’s execution by having judges subtract the deductions they witness from a start value of 10.

Some folks (confused gymnastic types mostly) feel the new system is flawed, as it seemingly encourages the pursuit of technical difficulty over flawless artistry. Certainly the system itself embodies this principal. In the long term, I’m most definitely convinced of the new system’s potential, but in 2008, since there’s very little precedent, scoring still feels a tad clunky.

Cumbersome evaluations aside, if you watched the Men’s Gymnastics Team Finals live Monday, you likely came away satisfied. The US Team, coping with the loss of both Hamm brothers due to injury, was more than happy to take home the Bronze. China, meanwhile, asserted it’s newly found herculean dominance by besting second place Japan by over 7 points (which seems like a large margin of victory).

One highlight from China’s perfomrance was Chen Yibing’s performance on the rings, which you can actually watch, or in my case rewatch, here on nbcolympics.com (skip to about 19 minutes in). You may need to download Microsoft Silverlight first, but trust me, it’s worth it, because NBC has put up a whole boat load of video along with a number of events you can watch live.
In the live streams there are no pesky announcers, so it’s perfect for watching multiple events at once. As I’m writing this, for example, I’m able to keep an eye on the Women’s 50m Air Rifle Final while at the same time watching the Men’s Gymnastic’s All-Around on NBC. Go ‘lympics!!!

Anyway, the Women’s Team Final on Tuesday proved slightly less satisfying. Unlike the US Men, the US Women were hoping to best China and take first, and I was pretty jazzed about whole thing because the team captain Alicia Sacramone currently attends Brown University. Unfortunately, Alicia was a little off her game, and the US had to settle for silver (although they probably wouldn’t have won even if Alicia hadn’t fallen). Also, the victorious Chinese “women” looked a tad young, and there appears to be good reason to be suspicious. Even famed gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi, Bob Costas’ cohost during the event, couldn’t resist calling their age into question at the very end of NBC’s broadcast.

Whether they are 16 or not, it hardly changes the disturbing fact that world’s greatest women’s gymnastics team has an average height of 4′-9”, and an average weight of 77 lbs. The more shapely US team, in contrast, towers over them at an average height just over 5′ and an average weight of 107 lbs. Rather than rely on difficult to verify age restrictions, I encourage the International Gymnastics Federation to consider mixing things up yet again and bringing tug of war back to the Summer Olypmics.

And finally we conclude with the real motivation for this post: what the hell is up with the women’s floor routine? First off, it’s set to (often questionable) music, clearly a misstep for any event wishing to be considered a sport. Second, almost all of the routines consist of a series of very impressive flips, tragically interspersed with awkward limb flailing. The flips are certainly Olympic-worthy, but if you’re going mix in the other stuff, and set it to music, why not just bite the bullet and do some actual dancing? I realize competitors are probably demonstrating their ability to execute some sort of required gymnasticy movements, but said movements don’t appear any more physically challenging than say, ballet, and they sure as hell look worse. As near as I can tell the routines would be a heck of a lot better if a choreographer were involved. My only guess as to why they aren’t doing this already is that maybe it’s too hard to dance well when you’re also worrying about having to do all those crazy flips. I’ll have to look into it.

Bonus Fact: Bowling was featured in the 1988 olympics as a demonstration sport.