During the Olympic Team Finals and All-Around Finals, gymnastics fans from all over the world have been burning up keyboards discussing the new scoring rules and how the judges have applied them.  To most concerned, another tweaking of the system seems imminent.

Originally, the change was meant to improve judging by separating the difficulty of the chosen routine from the gymnast’s execution of it.  Theoretically, this would make scoring more transparent for all, as previously the old perfect 10 scoring was "an impenetrable combination of pluses and minuses arrived at only after Talmudic contemplation of the FIG’s Code of Points ." The new scoring doesn’t have an artificial hard upper limit, like the 10 system.  It is meant to allow for elements and accomplishments that have not been thought up yet, more like other Olympic sports scores (race times, game points, pounds lifted) and less like an SAT score (with a finite potential of 100%).

The huge flaws in the new system have begun to grate experts watching them on the world’s stage.  Athletes and their coaches crunch the numbers and may decide not to go for the new and the surprising, which is a shame for the audience.  Some of the top elite gymnasts at the Olympics clearly chose common yet difficult skills over unusual, unrated ones, defeating one of the original purposes of the new system:  to encourage the new.

Case in point:  Sasha Artemev arguably has the most difficult pommel horse routine in the world.  Or does he?  Gymnasts are rewarded with higher difficulty by performing Russians in their pommel horse routines.  Artemev, on the other hand, is (according to the code of points) performing easier skills with his inverted flairs and spindles.  To the average fan, which looks better?  These fans see many gymnasts performing traveling Russians and circles.  Granted, Yang Wei and Xiao Qin execute amazing circles, with body and legs high above the pommels, but to the non-gymnastics audience the incredible difficulty is not apparent, and the repetition of these moves, routine after routine, can be boring to watch.

To put this into perspective, we’re seeing a lack of innovation, say, as above, on pommel horse, because of the reward system in the new scoring system.  Why is Artemev being penalized for doing something that nobody else in the world can do?  While the other side of the new scoring was meant to help athletes win with staid routines performed perfectly, the audience cries for some reward for the unusual, when also performed expertly.

However, when taken to an extreme, rewarding new and sometimes ever-increasingly difficult skills might push these athletes to the point of automatic injury and falls.  Some of this is inherent in any sport.  The top elites always risk injury.  Yet those of us who love the sport do not want the direction to go toward extreme risk.  How do we temper the desire for novelty and indeed, a little danger, without becoming one of the X-Games sports?

Another facet of this discussion centers on the artistry of gymnastics.  Look at the way her lower start values have penalized Nastia Liukin.  It seems like artistry and execution are taking a back seat to how much difficulty a gymnast can pack into their routines.  Thankfully, Liukin executed so well that she received the much-deserved gold medal in the All-Around.  The Men’s All-Around was almost comical.  There was one fall after another.   Is that good for the sport?  Is it better for our gymnasts to push the envelope for more difficulty, or is execution and artistry more important?  After all, our sport is called "Artistic Gymnastics."

And artistry is not limited to the graceful dance moves on the women’s gymnastics routines.  Men’s gymnastics can incorporate movement smooth enough to be called beautiful.  A Guzchogy element in a rings routine can look like a flowing waterfall, though some of the Chinese gymnasts’ efforts were so precise that the spirit seemed clipped out of the move.  Calculation plays a part in determining the elements in the routines, to be sure, but should there not be some benefit to an execution that makes the intensely difficult seem easy and flowing?

Artistry is almost impossible to judge, yet without it we could end up with grunting men transitioning leadenly from skill element to skill element.  Cirque de Soleil uses ticket profits as their judging table, and eye-pleasing routines are still winning gold in that sphere.

We have thousands of readers at StickItMedia, and plenty of you have intense opinions on this subject.  There are people who like the new system and there are people who hate it.  Both sides have legitimate concerns.  Do you want the envelope pushed, always rewarding the new and the difficult?  Are there any checks and balances needed to keep our gymnasts healthy, and to discourage falls?  Are gymnasts being pushed to the limit, setting themselves up for injury?

Do you enjoy the fact that a great gymnast with an average routine can be rewarded for his perfect execution?  How do you feel about the artistry of the executions?  Should a flowing routine be worth more than a robotic one?  Why are some gymnasts with lower start values but brilliant execution still not receiving higher scores that place value on a flawless routine?

Share your opinions, please.

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