[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

scoring in gymnastics pisses me off - those guys have routines that look pretty damn good and yet they end up with like 15.7's??

and yet the chinese guy on vault steps out of bounds and ends up with a 15.975?

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Because that prevents anyone from trying anything risky and makes things more boring.

The US on High Bar/China on Vault rotation where they passed us really stood out for me too because to my untrained eye we had 3 difficult routines and nailed 2.5 of them while the Chinese had 3 very difficult routines and made small mistakes on all of them yet somehow we lost multiple points and 1st place? Looking at the official scoring, I'm even more confused. Take a look at the high bar scores (Name/Difficulty/Avg. of 4 middle judges/Total)

US
Hagerty 6.6-8.95-15.55
Horton 6.4-9.3-15.7
Spring 6.3-9.375-15.675

China
Xiaoping 6.7-8.925-15.725
Qin 6.2-9.05-15.25
Kai 7.0-8.975-15.975

Huh? I watched all 3 of the US ones and NBC showed at least 2 of the 3 China ones. The US team was doing more release moves, better release moves and bigger dismounts and sticking them yet 2 of the 3 Chinese guys get better scores than any of ours? Horton's routine for example he had 2 crazy mid-routine releases and finished it off absolutely nailing a triple twisting backflip dismount, yet he only gets a 6.4 for difficulty and a 9.3 for execution? Where were the .7 in deductions?

Also, Artimov, the US guy that killed it on pommel horse was awarded a 6.1-9.25-15.35. Where were the deductions on that routine? It probably wasn't the best pommel horse routin ever, but it was the best I've seen and a 9.25 average score for execution? Meanwhile, on vault the 3 Chinese (I'll accept that the difficulty scores should be ridiculously high - those were some crazy stunts) got execution scores of 9.55/9.6/9.45 (automatic .1 deduction for the 3rd) despite all taking huge steps on the landings.

Certain events are clearly going to be scored higher - I guess it was vault here with most teams in the 16's (including the 3 highest US scores and the only 2 US 16's), with pommel horse consistently in the 14's/low 15's, (except for one Chinese guy throwing out a 6.4/9.7/16.1 which I would have loved to see if it was that much better than Artimov's) and I understand the desire to have certain routines start out worth more than others, but all I'm asking for is the execution score to A) be possible to get a 10 and B) make sense when comparing two routines. Hypothetically, if someone went out there and did the perfect front handspring off the vault, they'd probably get a 2 for difficulty and rightfully so, but they'd still probably get 9.2's-9.4's for execution.

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Pentathlon. Now there's a test.

Why not just go all out with decathlon?

Originally Posted by decathlon events

100m
400m
1500m
110m Hurdles
Long Jump
High Jump
Discus
Javelin
Pole Vault

One other random thing I noticed while looking for that - the US has more gold medals (307) and Silver Medals (225) in Track & Field than any country has medals total - next is some combination of USSR/Russia with 214/GBR with 185/GER with 116. Nearly so in Swimming too - 202g 146s for the US while combined Germany hits 184 thanks to the E.German women and Australia has 157. USA! USA! USA!