Gymnastics judging is horrible and this is the worst part (by far)
Watching Simone Biles win gold medal in the vault on Sunday you couldn't help but feel awe, marvel and bewilderment - not at her (though the words fit) but at the fact that the leaders of her sport believe that 10 judges can possibly give an accurate score without the benefit of video on a lightning-fast routine that takes less time to finish than it took you to read the last portion of this sentence.
Maybe you know this, maybe you don't, maybe you've thought about it, maybe you haven't -- but either way, it's worth repeating and ridiculing: Judges on the vault and all the other gymnastics apparatuses (apparati?) don't use replay. They don't have access to replay when delivering their original scores. (Challenges, which are rarely accepted let alone reversed, can use replay solely to determine starting difficulty, another moronic practice that's a whole other story.) I'm not saying I want replay - I abhor replay; it's the bane of sporting existence - but if any sport needs the process it's one in which an athlete is judged on their takeoffs and landings and the multiple flips, twists, dips and ducks that come in between, all judged by an impenetrable rulebook that's as dense as a calculus lesson.
Gymnastics super-coach Bela Karolyi, of all people, once said judging was "crazy, terrible and the stupidest thing ever." Technically, Karolyi was discussing another part of gymnastics scoring - the abandonment of the perfect 10 for the use of the pretty-good 15.7 (that alone should give you an idea at the geniuses behind modern gymnastics) - but nailed the gist of the completely subjective process that hides behind rules that unsuccessfully take great pains to make things seem objective.
This is not a screed against gymnastics. I don't profess to know the first thing about Yurchenkos, horses of pommel or the sadism of the balance beam. Watching most gymnastics events is enjoyable. Instead, this is a rather simple point that only the blindest of gymnastics supporters could argue with: It's impossible to adequately and accurately judge a maneuver that involves multiple twists, turns and flips within a two-second span.
That's how long it takes Biles and others to start, execute and finish a vault. In about 1.7 seconds, she'll do a back-flip roundoff into the springboard and then, from a reverse position, throw herself high in the air and do two-and-a-half twists before landing. This whole process is completed about 10 times faster than it takes your TV to turn on to watch it.
Here's a very-partial list of things judges are supposed to look for in that 1.7 seconds: bent knees, external amplitude, exactness of tuck position, failure to maintain stretch body pressure, hip angle, arch, staggered hand placement, excessive snap and under-rotation of salto. There are 23 elements for a vaulter and the vault itself has four parts: pre-flight, repulsion, second flight and landing. Conservatively, these take a half-second each. Say the word "vault" aloud. It takes about a half-second.
And these 10 judges are supposed to watch all of this in under two seconds to make a determination about who wins a gold medal and who is left with a lifetime of regret?
It's insane. Seven NFL officials can't determine whether an oblong ball crosses a stationary, identified, parallel line. An umpire staring directly at first base frequently can't tell whether a ball hit the mitt before a foot hit the bag. Basketball referees are unable to tell whether the tip of a sneaker was behind or over a rounded line. These are simple processes that take place directly in front of an official's face and they get it wrong so often that leagues have to put in video failsafes to correct their mistakes - and they still get it wrong even with the video about half the time despite breaking down the play like it's the Zapruder film.
But a gymnastics judge, one who has far too much freedom to begin with, is supposed to determine 50 different aspects of Simone Biles' Yurchenko with two and a half twists in a backward salto after seeing it once at real speed? Watch this replay of Biles at the U.S. Olympic trials.
Even in slo-mo it's fast! Yet gymnastics judges, perhaps the most incompetent officials this side of ice dancing judges or Jeff Triplette's NFL crew, don't even get a look at this and instead are basically making a glorified guess about who was able to execute their 1.72-second maneuver the best. They get lucky in 2016 because Biles is so clearly better than everybody else but overall it's a ridiculous exercise in an activity that deserves better.
Oh, and don't even get me started on the pommel horse.
