An Open Letter To Bruno Grandi
I'm actually going to print this off and mail it to him, and you should write your own and do so as well. If anyone speaks Italian fluently and can translate it so that I don't have to rely on whatever he has in his office, I would appreciate that. Mr. Grandi, At the recent World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, you spoke out demanding yet another change to the scoring system. Citing a supposed favoritism from the Code towards high difficulty over polished execution, you stated that a new rule should be imposed halving the athletes' difficulty scores - already reduced from previous Codes of Points by a variety of means - in order to increase the weight of the execution score in the final tally. However, a look at the data leaves me curious to see where this favoritism lies. Based on the scores from the individual all-around and event finals from the 2014 Worlds, as provided on the Longines Timing website, this argument quickly loses its validity. In the WAG all-around, the only gymnasts who earned 9.0 + E scores on any apparatus all placed in the top six, and the total execution score of those gymnasts in podium contention (the top five or six places) was markedly above the remainder of the field. In the WAG VT, BB and FX finals, the top 3 E scores were all on the podium. In fact, the D score was so disregarded in the BB final that Aliya Mustafina was able to medal despite missing one of her composition requirements - docking a full .5 from her difficulty. The only WAG final where this trend was not followed was in the UB event final, but as third and sixth places were separated by less than 0.3, this is understandable. On the men's side, the picture is much the same. While a gymnast who produces a routine that is difficult but poorly executed may have a chance at making a final, to win it is necessary to perform a routine that has both traits. The updates to the Code of Points made in 2005 and released in 2006 were designed to correct the inability of the 10.0 to properly reward high difficulty. They have done just that, allowing gymnasts who truly excel in both departments such as Kohei Uchimura and Simone Biles to enjoy an unprecedented degree of dominance in the sport. Furthermore, as the results from this Worlds prove, athletes that only possess phenomenal execution seem to already enjoy an advantage over those who only have high difficulty. If there still seems to be something missing from the execution of current gymnasts, perhaps there are easier ways to go about improving the system than completely upending the Code of Points yet again. For starters, perhaps the judges could be encouraged to show less favoritism and evaluate a routine's execution more carefully so that the separation between messy routines and clean ones is not small enough to be made up with a large difficulty. This could be accomplished through better education and monitoring of judges, or, if that is not enough, by making slow-motion instant replay available for closer evaluation of all routines at major meets, not just those where a protest or score of zero is being considered. If this fails, perhaps an abbreviated compulsory competition could be brought back as part of team QF, comprising a simple, 30-second or less routine or set of isolated skills on each apparatus similar to what the US WAG program uses in its elite qualifying. This would allow gymnasts who truly excel in execution to have a better chance of making individual finals in the first place. To the limited extent that this problem exists, there are many solutions to be had other than unilaterally slashing D scores and upsetting the delicate balance only barely established now between difficulty and execution. Before you pursue this or any option, I strongly recommend you sit down and think about the potential long-term effects on the sport, much as you seem to have not done with many of the changes you have pushed for in the last 22 years. Thank you, Danelle Pecht