The best ousted

July 30, 2012 | Filed under: Sports | Posted by:

US teenaged female gymnastic sensation Jordyn Wieber controversy has left her fans wondering over the dated rules of the Olympics. A 17 year old girl who had performed better than most of the athletes saw around two dozen gymnast move to the quarters while she was asked to go home. The reason was the fact that two of her teammates had performed better than her on the given day, and as the rulebooks said that only two gymnasts from each team will move to the finals, so she had to leave.

Though she was not to her potential yesterday, but still she was better than most of the athletes who have moved to the next and final round. Two of her teammates came up with scintillating performance and sneaked past her. She was inconsolable after the fiasco as she wept and wept. It was going to be her Olympic and she was expected to win a gold, but the archaic rules of the Olympic have ensured that she has her hopes shattered and her future in limbo.

But her fans can still take solace in the fact that despite losing her place in Olympic she was still the fourth best gymnast and had she been allowed to compete in the final, she would have been the hot favourite to win the medal. Following her exit, some commentators started claiming that she didn’t qualify due to her bad performance, but that is certainly not true. She was better than the rest, but her teammates even improved over her performance and so her exit from Olympics. An ESPN report rightly explains her problem. “Wieber fell victim not so much to her own incremental flaws in execution as she did to the depth in her own country”, says the report. It went on to find out the best reason of her exit when the writer of the report said, “The standard has been set very high for a very long time, and for the past couple of years, she has helped elevate it”. And Wieber played a huge role in setting the bar too high.

After making her debut at the international level she has collected all the top awards in her kitty. In her senior international debut at the 2011 American Cup, Wieber defeated the reigning world champion Aliya Mustafina of Russia. Wieber’s participation was questioned by the Russians as the event was an FIG World Cup event and invitations were based on results at the previous world championships (which Wieber was too young to compete at). But Wieber was allowed to register as an alternate and when an athlete from another country was injured, Wieber was able to compete. She also won the 2009 American Cup at age 13, before it became a World Cup event and juniors were eligible. To be true, despite the Olympic fiasco her exploits will continue at international level and she will continue to set the bar higher and higher.

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Posted by on July 30, 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
  • Don’t Understand

    Not a controversy?!?! Jordyn is indeed a victim of a poor rule and a judging system that doesn’t work. She didn’t NOT earn a spot in the all-around competition because she completely blew it on an event or two, she had a couple of EXTREMELY MINOR mistakes here and there but so did the other two athletes that advanced forward. And, to be perfectly honest her mistakes weren’t worthy of the low scoring she received. Because of a backwards rule that doesn’t work and poor judging that causes low undeserved scores for some athletes and undeserved high scores for other athletes the world is unfortunately going to miss a chance to see athletes with an amazing human spirit compete in a well deserved competition on a world stage. Isn’t THAT what the Olympics are really all about??? The chance for the Olympics committee to decide which athletes can and cannot participate in the Olympics in an all-around competition on a level playing field needs to be figured out BEFORE the games begin. To allow a country to send their best athletes to compete in the Olympic games and then after they arrive and start competing try to figure out ways to level the playing field by NOT allowing the highest scoring athletes to advance is just plain WRONG!!! Unfortunately it usually takes a tragedy for necessary changes to be made in this world.:(

  • Monica

    Ugh, shut up.

  • Nancy

    I’ll second that “shut up”

  • Julian

    I find the whole thing a huge travesty. First and foremost, I stand for the fact that Gaby’s mistake on floor was larger than all 3 of the so-called ‘errors’ that Jordyn exhibited and feel she was highly underscored throughout. 2nd, this still only put Jordyn 4th, meaning Jordyn’s score was still higher, overall, than at least half a dozen other countries’ 1st and 2nd, within the last 24hrs! If that isn’t enough, the fact that she’s not received first only twice since 2008 and is the current reigning world champsion, should stand for something as a cherry on top. I’d feel the same way if it was a competitor with those same stats from China, Russia, wherever. The biggest difference is that no other competitor can claim any of these stats who ended up taken third prior to last night. Everyone knows Jordyn has every ability to completely dominate if she was honored to compete. Instead, those that are not even the best are now competing. There should be at the very least, a wild card option for at least 2 countries to send in their third as long as that third place contestant’s score is within the top 25% of the final all around prelim scores, which Jordyn’s clearly was. This would only add 2 more competitors that have clearly earned it, to honestly have a fair shot. Obviously someone whose overall score sits at 8th or further behind is going to magically win a medal. Jordyn definitely could. This is just sad and my heart goes out to her and her family for having to deal with such a poor rule, that while it has been in place for some time, this is the first time, as I said, we’ve had to watch such a dominant and time proven athlete be kicked to the curb.

  • Stop Crying

    of course Gabby’s mistake was larger, but FACT 1 – Gabby had a very, very, very large to start with. FACT 2 – Gabby routine was worth more points which most of you none thinking morons fail to understand. They take the total points your routine is worth and subtract the flaws and whats left is your score.

  • nina simone

    Gabby’s performance was HORRIBLE! I don’t care how “hard” her routine was she went way out of bounds and took SEVEN STEPS to correct her position I’m surprised she didn’t fall flat on her face and her floor exercise fiasco wasn’t the only error in her all around performance. Jordyn was completely sideswiped by the judges horrible low scoring of sadly only her routines! It just doesn’t add up that Gabby is continuing ahead of Jordyn. It’s terrible for the sport that Gabby the worst screw up of the evening is advancing to the finals but Jordyn the World champion is not for the slightest of errors. Ridiculous!