Comaneci dismissed after Olympic great hits out at new scoring

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Olympic champion turned judge Nellie Kim dismissed accusations by Nadia Comaneci that gymnastics had lost its identity by scrapping the "perfect 10.00" scoring system.

Comaneci created one of the most memorable Olympic moments when she became the first gymnast to score a perfect 10.00 at the 1976 Montreal Games.

But Kim, who also attained perfection on the vault and floor exercise in Montreal, felt officials had to overhaul the scoring system after a string of judging controversies
overshadowed the gymnastics competition at the 2004 Olympics.

Olympic Games legend Nadia Comaneci has hit out at the new scoring system in gymnastics

Kim, who is now president of the International Gymnastics Federation's
women's technical committee, said: 'For my own personal interest and the publicity I got for being one of the first to get the perfect 10.00 I could have thought that it was better to keep the 10.

'But in the interest of honesty and correctness ... the judging had to become more fair and transparent.'

Just as figure skating was forced to scrap the 6.0 scoring system after a judging scandal at the 2002 Winter Games, gymnastics had its watershed moment in Athens.

As a result, the old method was abolished following the 2005 world championships in Melbourne.

A new system - where accumulative points are awarded for difficulty of content, while execution is scored out of 10.00 - will make its Olympic debut in Beijing this weekend.

While Comaneci said the sport had 'given the branding away', Kim said the old system had become inadequate.

'Before it was possible for two gymnasts who had absolutely different exercises to have the same start value. So we didn't have enough tools to reward exercises that were much more risky,' said the Russian five-times Olympic gold medallist.

The FIG decided to dump the 10.00 format, which had been in place since the 1920 Antwerp Games, after chaos erupted during the men's horizontal bar final in Athens.

Booing and jeering fans held up the competition for almost 10 minutes and judges were forced to increase the score of four-times Olympics champion Alexei Nemov.

'Before the system took care of (well-executed but) average exercises by gymnasts. So even if a gymnast had a fantastic routine, they could not score higher than a 10, which is what happened in Athens to Nemov on the bar,' said Kim.

To ensure that there is no repeat of the 2004 fiasco, judges will also be able to use instant replay technology for the first time at an Olympics when competition begins on
Saturday.

'We have the IRCOS system now and this is a fantastic tool as we can immediately re-examine a routine and correct a score if necessary. It has helped to reduce bias a judge may have for a particular athlete,' she said.

'Coaches can submit an enquiry if they disagree and we have more tools to check the scores.'