DENVER—Motivated by unhappy TV executives and confused fans, international gymnastics officials are looking at reworking the revamped scoring system that eliminated the perfect 10 at last year’s Beijing Olympics.
Bob Colarossi, president of the marketing commission of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), is tinkering with formulas that could make the open-ended scoring system easier to understand. He hopes to have at least some minor changes in place before the London Games in 2012.
“I don’t think there’s any way it goes back to the old system,” Colarossi said. “We’re looking at what we can do with the results mathematically to make the scores easier for the average person to understand.”
One possibility, not likely, is condensing the current system—which grades execution on a 10-point scale and difficulty on an open-ended scale—into a formula that ends with a maximum of 10 points. The problem there: It wouldn’t really bring back what was once considered the perfect 10, and scores might have to be pushed out to so many decimal points that it won’t diminish the confusion.
The biggest problem with the new scoring system was not only that 16s and 17s replaced 9.6s and 9.7s, but that the scores meant different things on different events. Vaults were overvalued, pommel horse routines were undervalued.
The scoreboard often lied at big meets—with leaders not truly ahead because they had been on higher-scoring events earlier in the session.
One of Colarossi’s goals is to even out the disparities between events. Another is to include more ways for fans on TV and at the events to know more about what’s going on. For example, posting scores for longer and adding in-arena radio with commentary from ex-gymnasts.
Broadcasters at the Olympics have met with FIG and talked about the difficulty of explaining the scoring system to viewers, most of whom tune into the sport once every four years.
“Whenever there’s a major change like what we did, it’s going to be a little confusing for a while,” Colarossi said. “The object is to make it so people understand things better.”
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SHORT LIST:@ The seven sports vying for inclusion into the 2016 Summer Games will know in August if they made the short list.
Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, announced Friday the executive board will analyze the seven applicant sports and then propose two at an IOC meeting in Berlin this summer. In the running are softball, baseball, golf, rugby sevens, roller speedskating, squash and karate.
Rogge said the committee will review the sports at a board meeting before the opening ceremonies at the world track and field championships in mid-August.
“The IOC session wanted to have some guidance on the election,” Rogge explained.
The IOC will choose a maximum of two new sports for 2016 when it meets in Copenhagen, Denmark, in October.
Softball and baseball took their last swings for at least eight years at the Beijing Olympics after an IOC vote in 2005 to exclude the sports for the 2012 London Games.
Rugby sevens, squash, golf, karate and roller sports were each considered for inclusion in the 2005 vote but none met a required two-thirds majority. Since then, the system has been changed to require only a simple majority for addition of new sports.
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CHAMBERS VS. BOLT:@ The president of the international track federation doesn’t think multiple world-record holder Usain Bolt is the most talked-about sprinter in every corner of the globe. He’s not happy about it, either.
“If I had Dwain Chambers and Bolt in Europe, they’d talk about Dwain Chambers,” Lamine Diack said. “That’s the problem. They’ve been very serious about that for a long time. Is he coming back, is he not coming back? It’s a big issue.”
But Diack conceded that the issue is closed from the IAAF perspective after the council’s decision not to take any action against the British sprinter.
Chambers, who served a two-year ban after testing positive for the steroid THG in August 2003, didn’t compete in the Beijing Olympics last summer because of a lifetime ban imposed by the British Olympic team.
He recently published a book detailing his past doping offenses. The IAAF looked into it to see if it should suspend the sprinter for “bringing the sport into disrepute.”
Diack said he was not happy to hear reports that Chambers was resuming his relationship with Victor Conte, the central figure in the BALCO scandal. Conte pleaded guilty to operating a steroids distribution ring and served four months in prison.
Chambers, who recently won the European indoor 60 meters, is using a legal high-tech breathing device to boost his oxygen capacity under the supervision of Conte.
“I’ve said I don’t understand that,” Diack said. “I guess he must think Victor Conte is a very special guy, that he’s like a guru, telling people what to do. But we do know he was in prison.”
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PROTESTS PLANNED:@ Now that Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo have delivered their presentations for the 2016 Games in Denver, the IOC’s white-gloved tour of the four finalist candidate cities begins next week.
Up first is Chicago, where protests are planned during the delegation’s visit.
A group calling itself “No Games Chicago” says the city should be spending money on schools and housing, not the Olympic Games. The group plans a Thursday rally, and the head of the police officers’ union says there may be picketing to show their anger about the status of contract negotiations.
“Everybody has the right … to protest,” Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said while in Denver this week. “They have a right and we don’t object to that at all.”
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CHINA’S IMPACT:@ For years leading up to the Beijing Olympics, human rights advocates had hoped the Summer Games would spur progress in China.
Has anything changed?
Some human rights and free-speech advocates remain skeptical, saying the situation in China has worsened since the games. Some have faulted Rogge for the lack of overall progress, saying he seemed reluctant to press Chinese leaders on rights issues in the lead-up to the Olympics.
Asked about China on Friday, Rogge said the IOC is still interested.
“I believe that the Games have opened China to the rest of the world,” he said. “There is a better knowledge of China by the rest of the world. There is definitely, I believe, another perception of the world by China itself.”
