BEIJING — Gymnastics lacks the clarity of timed sports, in which a stopwatch provides the exclamation point to superhuman performances by Olympians such as American swimmer Michael Phelps and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. In gymnastics, subjective qualities often supply the narrative’s drama.
And in an Olympic gymnastics competition that has been rife with drama — including a shift in the sport’s world order, with China supplanting the United States, and a controversy over whether the Olympic host’s gold medal quest is being aided by 13-year-old gymnasts masquerading as 16-year-olds — Monday’s uneven bars final added another twist.
With a gold medal at stake, American Nastia Liukin and China’s He Kexin, who is among the gymnasts whose age has been questioned, received identical scores for their exceedingly difficult uneven bars routines.
Without explanation, the electronic scoreboard at Beijing’s National Indoor Stadium posted the mark — 16.725 points — beside each gymnast’s name, yet listed He (pronounced “heh”) first in the standings and Liukin second. And that’s how they finished, with He winning gold and a baffled Liukin taking silver, unclear how their scores, figured to the thousandth of a point, had been distinguished.
The answer was in a six-step tiebreak procedure instituted in 1997. With the first step failing to draw a distinction between the quality of the routines, a second tiebreak was needed.
The relevant numbers: He was assessed fewer deductions, on average, for her performance by a subset of judges than was Liukin — 0.933 points to 0.966. With that bit of mathematical minutiae, China won its seventh gymnastics gold, and the United States remained stalled at one.
Liukin, 18, who towers seven inches above He, turned her focus to Tuesday’s balance beam final — her last chance to win another medal at the Beijing Games — allowing herself little more than an hour to ponder why or what might have been.
“That’s the rules, and you have to play by them,” said Liukin, who has won a gold in the all-around, two silvers — in the team competition and uneven bars — and bronze on the floor exercise.
While Phelps’ heroics have captivated Americans throughout the first 11 days of the Olympics, China’s gymnasts have been the story of the Games for the host nation.
Even before the Opening Ceremonies, it was clear that the storied gymnastics rivalry between Russia and the United States, which fueled TV ratings for so many Olympics, was dead. China was the Americans’ new rival. And its gymnasts, systematically trained since childhood for the physical and mental rigor of the 2008 Games, were expected to achieve record heights or suffer an emotional collapse under the weight of the country’s expectations.
They have been brilliant, winning seven gold medals, including the coveted men’s and women’s team titles. Liukin, meantime, has won the United States’ lone gold medal, in the all-around.
Yet China’s success has been dogged by controversy. Questions have swirled around the age of two of China’s female gymnasts. Documents from her junior career, and comments by a senior Chinese sports official last year, indicate that He may be as young as 13. Meantime, the documents indicate that her teammate, Jiang Yuyuan, was born in 1993, not in 1992 as required by the International Gymnastics Federation. The sport’s governing body, which requires that gymnasts turn 16 during the calendar year in which they compete in an Olympics, has refused to investigate, saying that the birthdates listed for the two Chinese competitors on their passports is sufficient.
USA Gymnastics officials inquired about the gymnasts’ ages before the Beijing Games but have since said their eligibility is a matter for the gymnastics federation and International Olympic Committee to decide.
Any lingering controversy over the age issue was overshadowed Monday by the confusing ending to the uneven bars competition. No explanation was offered to the wildly partisan crowd about the tiebreak that put He atop the medal stand — and few in the stands cared.
The elfin He, 4-feet-8 and 73 pounds, had just delivered China another gymnastics gold.
After the procedures were explained and the computations were checked, the American gymnastics delegation — Liukin included — accepted the outcome with no suggestion that the rules had been manipulated in favor of He or China.
The daughter of former Soviet champion gymnasts, Liukin held her head with a champion’s assurance even while conceding that the outcome was slightly disappointing. “I tied,” Liukin said. “It wasn’t that I got second by three- or four-tenths (of a point). I have the same, exact score, and that’s what makes it a little harder. But you can’t control judges. As soon as you land a dismount, it’s all up to them. You have to leave it at that.”
Ties in Olympic gymnastics used to result in the awarding of the same medals for both, or even three, competitors. But in 1997, the year after the Atlanta Games, the IOC determined that judged sports needed a tiebreaker system and the gymnastics federation developed one.
The system has been used in past Olympics, albeit without the controversy and confusion that occurred here Monday. At the Athens Olympics four years ago, American Paul Hamm settled for silver in the horizontal bar after an Italian gymnast won the tiebreaker.
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