The head of the delegation of the Olympic team at the Tokyo Games commented on the statement by FIG.
Head of the delegation of the Olympic team at the Tokyo Games Andrey Konokotin:
— The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) published an official statement yesterday where it emphasized that the International Technical Committee for Rhythmic Gymnastics, having analyzed the assessments of past competitions, did not identify any bias or misjudgment on the part of the judges’ at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. In this regard, the standings and the results of the Tokyo Olympics in rhythmic gymnastics for the Individual and Group All-Around performances will be left unchanged by the FIG.
Along with the publication of the statement, the Russian Olympic Committee received a letter with explanations signed by FIG Secretary General Nicolas Buompane. It is important to note that in addition to insistent assurances about the honesty and impartiality of the judging and the scoring system, the letter clearly states the refusal to provide the results of the video analysis of athletes’ performances in the Individual and Group All-Around events, as well as detailed protocols for assigning scores and penalty points to the participants (score cards) which we requested on August 7 and 8 in Tokyo.
The position of the International Gymnastics Federation on the basis of this official statement is understandable and perhaps even explainable. However, it completely lacks compelling answers to the questions that I, as the head of the ROC delegation, addressed to the FIG and the IOC.
It is simply pointless to comment on the formal reaction to our first enquiry on August 7 regarding the situation with scoring in the Individual all-Around.
The document we have received now, unfortunately, does not contain any information on the objective and detailed analysis of the decisions of each judge, on the conformity of the points given to Dina Averina from the viewpoint of an independent examination and in terms of the absence of direct or indirect conflicts of interest when forming the panel of judges. And there is no information on the lengthy pause before the final decision since the judges counted the points for quite a long time after our gymnast’s final performance.
Why did the judges using high-tech software take almost 7 minutes to calculate the points and announce the result of Dina Averina’s performance with the ribbon? According to the logic of colleagues from the FIG, should the public simply be satisfied with the statement that everything was done correctly?
Meanwhile, we are firmly convinced that it is in the common interest to ensure an open, transparent examination of the situation that has caused such a public outcry. But now we can observe a completely different trend.
Rhythmic gymnastics is an Olympic sport. This means that there must be clear and understandable criteria for scoring. Each panel of judges has its own score, which is calculated on paper and recorded. I would like to see these calculations. A track-and-field athlete, for example, can see the height after jumping over a bar.
I know that Vasily Titov, First Vice-President of the International Gymnastics Federation, without waiting for the above-mentioned public statement by FIG, sent an additional protest on behalf of the Russian side, which is due to be considered by the Executive Committee of the organization.
Vasily Titov, and we stand fully behind him, was not satisfied with the reaction from the FIG. We consider it a fair decision to use all available resources in order to get clarifications on the relevant and valid issues at hand.
We continue to work and continuously provide support, including legal and diplomatic assistance, to our colleagues from the gymnastics community and we are in constant contact with our representative at the International Gymnastics Federation.
