I just finished watching the women's uneven bar finals from Beijing, and the now perfunctory commentary from Bela Karolyi about the unfair and ridiculous scoring procedures. This week there have been countless occasions where the scoring system seems to be unequally applied to some gymnasts, and NBC has been quick to bring up situations where an American athlete has been shortchanged.
To me the essence of sport is that the winners and losers are determined solely by the actions of the participants. It seems that in gymnastics this is many times not the case. Instead, the outcome is determined by the supposedly objective but truly subjective opinion.
Thank goodness that we will never have this problem in our sport. We have the clock, which never lies. Though it can be a cruel taskmaster, the clock is the most honest tool we can have to evaluate our performance. The time you swim is the time you earn. Nobody else can change it or affect it. No one can take it away. That is the beauty of swimming.
You're right that is the beauty of swimming. However; and maybe I am comparing apples to oranges with gymnastics and swimming but you are still being judged on the way you swim. My son has been swimming for 8yrs. He now swims for high school. When he swims butterfly he has this extra little flipper kick he does at the end which technically is legal. He has never been DQed for it. But at one meet he was. Sometimes it takes one stroke and turn judge who will feel a swimmer made a mistake on a stroke. Thank goodness he has an awesome coach who stepped in and fought for him and had it overturned. Basically times are the most important and they cannot be changed but swimmers are under pressure to make sure their strokes and turns are perfect as they swim because they are being judged as they swim. So they are not completely out of the woods.
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