Gymnastics - Liukin tie exposes flaws of new system

By Pritha Sarkar

BEIJING (Reuters) - The new scoring system in gymnastics was supposed to make judging more transparent. Monday's asymmetric bars final showed it has failed.

American Nastia Liukin thought her eyes were deceiving her when she saw her name ranked second behind China's He Kexin.

The reason for her disbelief?

She had earned an identical score of 16.725 as He but thanks to a convoluted tiebreak system, was second.

It did not make any sense to Liukin, to the fans, to the coaches or even the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) officials, who struggled to explain the rules to a large group of confused people after the competition ended.

"I kept looking at it, and there was a one by her name and a two by my name. I was like, 'okay, am I that tired?" said Liukin.

Luikin's father and coach Valery, who shared a horizontal bar gold medal in the 1988 Seoul Games added: "I don't think a lot of people know what's going on right now. I have no idea, either."

Monday's confusion was the scenario the FIG had hoped to avoid when they revamped the scoring system following a spate of disputed medals at the 2004 Athens Games.