The most memorable moments from this Olympic gymnastics competition are not those of beaming smiles, tears of joy and overwhelming success for Romania and the U.S.
They are painful shots of bewilderment, astonishment and hissing crowds.
The judging scandals that have commandeered the attention of billions watching on television and thousands in attendance seem to have severely crippled the sport.
Or have they?
Questions far outweigh answers. Solutions are in short supply. Very few are talking. A sport known for grace, strength and elegance is stumbling on the world’s biggest stage.
Bruno Grandi, the International Gymnastics Federation president, refused to comment Tuesday on the events of the last seven days.
FIG member Rosa Guillamet of Spain expressed no concern over judging blunders in the men’s all-around and horizontal bar finals and the worldwide attention they received.
“In the Olympics, gymnastics is big,” she said. “But later, soccer rules. I don’t think the sport will be affected.”
Others disagree. Prominent people associated with the sport, including former FIG President Yuri Titov, are calling for an overhaul in judging.
“The scoring must be better by the authority of FIG,” said Titov, a 1956 Olympic gold medalist for the Soviet Union. “There were big mistakes, and they must be corrected.”
The need for reform was “obvious by several mistakes” in the men’s competition, Titov said.
Former world champion sports acrobat Evgeny Marchenko, now coach of women’s all-around champ Carly Patterson of the U.S., concurred.
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“The men’s side has certain problems,” Marchenko said. “Maybe the level of judging was not qualified enough.”
Paul Ziert, who coached 1984 Olympic gold medalist Bart Conner and now publishes International Gymnast magazine, said an additional problem rests with the association’s code of points and the judges’ interpretation of the guidelines.
“There is nothing in it for creativity and innovation,” Ziert said, explaining that the code favors flawless execution and precision over high-flying acrobatic skills.
USA Gymnastics President Bob Colarossi declined to comment.
Some believe that bad publicity is better than none, especially when it relates to the men’s program in the U.S.
“It’s the Tonya Harding thing,” Kelly Crumley, coach at Buffalo Grove Gymnastics Club, said in a telephone interview. Crumley coaches 2008 Olympic hopeful David Sender, 18, of Arlington Heights among dozens of young gymnasts.
“You watch skating over the years, and until someone comes up with a scandal, no one pays attention,” Crumley said. “The bad publicity did skating a lot of good. It might do the same here.”
To understand gymnastics’ plight, it’s necessary to sort through the problems of this week.
Russia’s Olympic officials sent letters to the FIG and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge on Tuesday criticizing the judging they believe cost Alexei Nemov a medal on the horizontal bar and Svetlana Khorkina all-around gold in the women’s finals. Khorkina won the silver behind Patterson.
Greeks, Bulgarians and Canadians also questioned scores during the event finals. But many will say FIG’s worst moment occurred when judges erred in establishing the difficulty level, or start value, of South Korean Yang Tae Young’s parallel bars routine by a tenth of a point in the men’s all-around finals.
Yang had been in the running for the championship but finished with bronze, less than a tenth of a point behind gold medalist Paul Hamm of the U.S. Three judges, including an American, were suspended for the rest of the competition, but scores could not be changed.
Others will point to Monday’s fiasco in the scoring of the men’s horizontal bar final as FIG’s ugliest day.
Thunderous jeers followed inexplicably low scores for an outstanding performance by Nemov, whose score was changed slightly by two judges at the request of technical director Adrian Stoica, who oversees FIG’s judging.
Peter Vidmar, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist and radio commentator, believes Nemov’s score was too low at the outset.
But in changing it, the sport “looks terrible,” he said. “What’s the basis for raising the score? `The crowd got mad at us?'”
Stoica said he stepped in because the Malaysian and Canadian judges weren’t within range of the other four judges. His request is allowed under FIG’s code of points, he said.
“It’s a big mistake to believe it was changed because of the crowd,” he insisted.
The slight increase in Nemov’s score, from 9.725 to 9.762, didn’t satisfy fans, though, and their heckling of the judges and Hamm lasted 8 1/2 minutes and stopped the competition cold.
Hamm’s routine, while not as dazzling as Nemov’s, had fewer execution errors. He won a silver medal. Nemov finished fifth.
A new code of points, effective next year, will give more weight to tricky, innovative skills, but that’s no consolation to this some of this year’s Olympians.
Hamm became the antagonist in a made-for-TV drama. Worse for the Waukesha, Wis., native, FIG President Bruno Grandi left the all-around controversy up to the 21-year-old to resolve when he raised the idea of Hamm giving up his gold medal to Yang.
“I’m upset with FIG,” Hamm acknowledged Monday. “They have put it almost entirely on me.”