Chinese Judge Shao Bin Sanctioned & Shao's Response

From FIG website (via TGC):

On August 19, 2011, the FIG Disciplinary Commission announced its decision with regard to Chinese judge Mr Shao Bin, found guilty of fraud at the 2010 Asian Games. Shao Bin has seen his judging brevet downgraded to a category four, and will be responsible for covering the CHF 7,200 in legal costs.

The decision is not unexpected. The FIG report also mentioned that

The Disciplinary Commission tried the Chinese judge at the FIG Head Office on April 27, 2011, at which time it also heard the witness testimony of Men's Technical Committee President Adrian Stoica(ROU), present on-site at the time of the act.

Mr Shao Bin has the right to lodge an appeal within 21 days of notification, in this case September 9, 2011 at midnight.

This is the trial held by FIG Disciplinary Commission. But not sure which department the appeal will go, IOC Disciplinary Commission?

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update: Chinese gymnastics judge criticizes FIG sanction:

Shao:

"The FIG ruling is ridiculous and very disappointing," Shao told Xinhua during an interview late on Wednesday. "The FIG's charge against me is groundless. They have failed to provide any convincing evidence."
...
Shao argued that FIG rules have a clause that D1 judge has the right to "control" the final score and therefore he didn't break the rules.

By "control", Shao is referring to MAG CoP 2009-2012 V.6 article 10.1 (page 18)

FIG:

FIG media operations officer Philippe Silacci, however, said in an email to Xinhua that "D1 judges are not authorized to do so", without giving detailed explanation.

A Chinese gymnastics expert who asked not to be named:

"As the chief of Superior Jury, Stoica also had a fault on the matter. He should not escape punishment if the FIG insists on Shao's guilt."
...
"For the sake of gymnastics itself, the FIG must remedy the defects in rules and uphold fairness."

Shao yet made up his mind on appeal:

"I need to take time to consider it carefully, because even if I lodge an appeal, it would be very possible an effort in vain in view of the current situation that the FIG are too subjective," he said.

Disciplinary Investigation on Shao Bin

A hearing of three days will be held in Lausanne this week. Shao Bin answered media as departing at Shanghai airport with a group of lawyers. They are feeling confident on defending.

The FIG Men’s Artistic 2009 – 2012 Code of Points Article 10.1 reads “…The judge D1 has, among others, the following functions: …. d) to control the Final Score for each exercise.” Adrian Stoica, the head of the superior jury, was informed about the score change via computer system as he himself reported to IG.

“This has been well prepared and Mr. Shao would be able to be confident at the hearing. As for the part of disciplinary suit, we have got reasonable citation to controvert. All he did does not conflict with any FIG rules.” said Xiao Lei, one of the lawyers, “You can try to blame him for inappropriate scoring, but the FIG published a conclusion-like announcement without any reasons or research against Mr. Shao Bin on the sportsmanship level and this has hurt his reputation and life. We are battling to defend.”

The conclusion is expected to be made within three months. Shao Bin is seeking further appeal if it does not satisfy him.

Here is what MAG CoP 2009-2012 V.6 article 10.1 (page 18) says:

The judge D1 has, among others, the following functions:
a) To coordinate the work of all members of the Apparatus Jury.
b) To serve as liaison between the Apparatus Jury and the Chair of the Superior Jury, through the Apparatus Supervisor in the Superior Jury.
c) To assure the efficient running of his apparatus including the control of warm up time and also:
i. To give the green light or other conspicuous signal to notify the gymnast that he must begin his exercise within thirty seconds.
ii. To acknowledge the completion of the gymnast’s exercise.
d) To control the Final Score for each exercise.
e) To apply additional deductions and penalties (line violations, etc.) as stipulated in the Code of Points.
• The additional deductions for poor conduct are brought to the Scoring Table before the Final Score is displayed.
• The additional deductions for Floor Exercise time and line violations are brought to the Scoring Table before the Final Score is displayed.
• Vault line deductions
• No respect of the official warm-up time at parallel bars

People say when treated unfairly you could trow the book at him, but what if he actually wrote "the book"? Make no mistakes, FIG is sure no judiciary court. For gymfans who are long familiar with FIG's reputation and read enough on what actually had happened, all we can do is to hope the very best for Shao. Seems this time FIG, and Mr. Stoica, have determined to make an example of someone, yet again.

More report can be found in FIG website.

(via xlhdh)

Follow up on the score-fixing scandal

Chinese Gymnastics Association hold a press conference on Mar. 17th regarding the score-fixing issue. Here is the statement by Pan Chenfei - Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Gymnastics Association,

I. Chinese Gymnastics Association has got the e-mail from FIG only a few days ago, informing us proceedings has been lunched to look into Shao Bin's violation of the judges' rules during the Floor Exercise final of the Asian Games and asking us to inform Shao Bin himself and we did. Our preliminary investigation has led to the result that Shao Bin made bold to do this and further investigation is being expected. We will let him cooperate with the investigation.
II. Chinese Gymnastics Association is always against and do not tolerant any violation of international rules. We have always told judges to obey to rules and to judge fairly in their education. Any actions from anybody of a violation of international rules are wrong and unacceptable.
III. The FIG is investigating this issue and whenever the fact is determined and a decision comes out, the Chinese Gymnastics Association will take action to the party correspond to the FIG decision.

(via xlhdh's ytb channel)

Some official bla bla. During the post-conference interview, however, he pointed out several questionable points regarding the FIG's allegation. First, why there was a 4+ months delay, as pointed out by the gym followers. Second, the FIG official who brought up the allegation was Mr. Adrian Stoica -- FIG Men's Technical Committee President and President of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation. Mr. Stoica served as FIG technical representative during the 2010 Asian Games. In another word, he was the head judge who approved both the release of individual scores and the final ranking of Men's FX EF. (apparently sign-off by the head judge is needed on both individual scores and the final ranking. Gymnast's score would not be released until the head judge unlocks it as required by the computer scoring system. And the final ranking - especially when tie breaking is needed - must be approved with head judge's signature. We did learn some useful facts from this :( ). Of course Mr. Stoica did sign off on both!

Mr. Pan also mentioned in the interview that, according to one judge who judged in the 2010 Asian Games gymnastics, Mr. Stocia brought up and criticized "changing score" cases (yes in plural form, how many times score changing had occurred?? ) during an internal judges meeting in 2010 Asian Games. It is safe to assume Mr. Stocia was fully aware the judging issue.

There was another interview with Chinese Gymnastics Association official Ye Zhennan, who casted pretty much the same doubts on the timing and questioned the FIG Men's TC president's motive.
More on Mr. Adrian Stoica from Gymnastics Coaching.

More perspectives on the score-fixing scandal

From IG facebook:

International Gymnast Magazine @Beth, please remember that cheating and dirty judging are not restricted to the Chinese, particularly at the Asian Games, which are notorious for these scandals. The Korean judges were accused of similar score fixing and changing at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea. An important question is - why wasn't there an event expert who noticed this at the time? Why did it take five months for the FIG to take action?

A quick recap of the Men's FX EF at 2010 Asian Games. According to the start list of FX EF, Zhang Chenglong competed (5th) before Kim Soo Myun(6th). Zhang's score (D:6.4/E:9.0) was given before KIM Soo Myun was on. Final score can be found from fulltwist.

Here is the judges list of the FX EF. The 1st D-panel judge Shao Bin was sitting next to the D2 judge Nam Seung Ku (first right)from South Korea.

Here is the clip with Zhang and Kim in the FX EF.


Please feel free to leave a comment.

FIG: Chinese Judge Cheated at Asian Games

Here the report from IG:

According to the FIG, China's Shao Bin was serving on the Difficulty panel in the floor exercise final in Guangzhou when he changed an Execution score without authorization. The altered Execution score placed China's Zhang Chenglong in a tie for the gold medal with Korean gymnast Kim Soo Myun.

"Shao Bin modified an Execution score prior to its release without informing either the head Execution judge or the Superior Jury," the FIG stated. "[Shao] committed this act upon his own initiative and with complete disregard for the rules in force."

According to the FIG website, Shao is a Category 2 judge, the second-highest ranking for international judges. He now faces a disciplinary suit for "having violated the ethical code and judging rules."

"The FIG deems [Shao]'s attitude wholly unacceptable and has decided to take severe action, transferring this case to its Disciplinary Commission," the FIG stated.

Both GymNiceTic and Gymnastics Coaching have reported this.

What had this judge been smoking? Did he really think he could pull this off without getting caught?

BTW, how did FIG not notice this right away!? Wasn't Asian Games almost half year ago?