subjective scoring in Olympic sports drives me a little crazy

The Olympics are beginning. When I think of the Olympic sports, I think of a lot of sports that scored subjectively. Not so much stronger, faster, and more goals, more of panels of judges picking winners amid controversy. I prefer number crunching and objective scoring. A New York Times article by John Branch [Link] overviews the changes to the winter Olympic sports in the last two decades. In summary, the new sports are mostly those with  subjective scoring (halfpipe, snowboard cross).

A good run early in the contest might receive an 80. A slightly better run might earn an 83. A brilliant run, one that seems unbeatable, might score 95. All of the others are slotted around them. It can frustrate athletes, who ask why their second-place score was 10 points below that of the winner. They struggle to understand that the value means nothing; what matters is how it ranks.

I’ve noticed this, too, and it’s frustrating. Some sports like figure skating and gymnastics have well-established rubrics for scoring, but they are not perfect. On the positive side, the judges do a fairly good job of recognizing the best performances.

Does subjective scoring bother you?

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Look for more Olympics posts from me in the next couple of weeks.

I’ve been blogging for almost 7 years, so I have a few old posts about the Olympics. Here are a few that I recommend reading:

• Olympic scoring systems
• how to resolve ties in Olympic sports
• Curling strategies and OR
• how to predict how many records will be broken in the Olympics (from 2012)