During the evening session we sat with and spoke to a number of other teams fans in addition to other Bama fans. I have NEVER EVER seen/heard/felt a
consensus so strong about the judging as it relates to Georgia. I know many will say this shared frustration is really just a result of them legitimately
kicking all our teams butts the last several years. Maybe that's it. And indeed let me say right up front they were the best team Thursday, are the best
team this year, and likely will win and deserve their 4th consecutive championship.
But this is what makes it so ridiculous that they ALSO getting a boost from favorable judging. Its like they are royalty and instead of being held to the same
standard of deductions they are treated with deference - "oh my she/they might be offended if we score that a 9.7". The approach by the judges on
beam was the most EGREGIOUS. All afternoon the scored beam the harshest I have ever seen I think - but consistently applied this to all teams and gymnasts.
Some outstanding athletes and beam performers named Hartung, Castillo, Susan Jackson, Casey Overton, Brittany Magee, Redmond-Sturnz etc performed (most of them
very well) and NOT ONE of them received higher than 9.85, most not that high. No competitor out of 36 in the team prelims scored more than 9.85. No team was
able to score 49. Fla, Ala, LSU were all in the high 48's.
Then UGA comes out on beam in the FIRST ROTATION with the exact same 4 judges of doom and the through up 9.875, 9.9, 9.95 for Tolnay, Taylor and Heenan so fast
you just had to chuckle. Don't misunderstand - these ladies all did outstanding routines and I would have no problem with their scores if they had been
scored with same approach as everyone else. But they were not ! They then went right back to the harsh approach with UCLA and others. I'd say they eased
up a bit from the afternoon with Utah and Stanford but we always see that level of acceleration in the evening session. The GymDawg level was unprecedented in
my experience.
And why is it that the predictable holding down of scoring in the first rotation of a meet is applied to all team except guess who ?
Georgia then went to floor. Abby Stack had 2 poor landings, a real below average one jammed one with 2 or 3 stutter steps on her first pass and another
awkward off balance one with lunging step on her last pass. All day and night floor routines with such mistakes (some frankly with less errors than this)
received scores of 9.65 or so. Nope - 9.8 is as low as we go when its UGA doing a way mediocre routine.
I could cite some more but I'll stop. I am curious if my "anecdotal" conclusion during the evening meet that my opinion on this topic was shared
by lots of the non-UGA folks there. Please provide some feedback and tell me if I am just deranged by 3 years of beat downs by UGA, or if you see the similar
treatment.
