Gymnastics at the 2004 Summer Olympics - Women's artistic individual all-around

These are the results of the women's individual all-around competition, one of six events for female competitors in the artistic gymnastics discipline contested in the gymnastics at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The qualification and final rounds took place on August 15 and August 19 at the Olympic Indoor Hall.

Medalists

Results

Qualification

Ninety-eight gymnasts qualified to compete in the individual all-around event in the artistic gymnastics qualification round on August 15, by performing on at least one apparatus.The twenty-four highest scoring gymnasts advanced to the final on August 19.

Final

¹ Svetlana Khorkina contested her second place score after she was wrongly deducted on her vaulting apparatus. After her performance, the judges discussed via telephone in secrecy for nearly two minutes until Khorkina's vault was given a score of 9.462. Commentator Elfi Schlegel is quoted as saying, "I'm a little surprised [with the score.] " However, immediately following any controversy regarding Khorkina's score on vault, Schlegel and fellow commentator Tim Daggett insisted that Khorkina's uneven bars score was artificially high.

After the incident, the Russian Olympic Committee sent several letters in hand with a petition asking the International Gymnastics Federation and the International Olympic Committee, guided under then-President Jacques Rogge, to consider serious revisions to the sport. Many complaints were heard specifically regarding the particular vault score that was said to ultimately cost Svetlana Khorkina a gold medal in the Women's All-Around (she was said to be underscored by 0.2 in a competition she lost by 0.176 of a point.) [ [http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/athens/gymnastics/2004-08-24-russian-reaction_x.htm Upset Russians Ask IOC to Take Long Look at Gymnastics] ]

As well, the Indianapolis Star declared Carly Patterson the clear winner but had this to say, "Was Khorkina cheated? Her vault score seemed low, and strangely, the judges seemed to take a long time figuring out the numbers on that one." [ [http://indystar.gannettonline.com/gns/olympics/20040819-50699.html Little Gymnast Gives Big Dose of Star Power] ]

Svetlana Khorkina was quoted as saying, "I'm just furious [because] I knew well in advance, even before I stepped on the stage for my first event, that I was going to lose. Everything was decided in advance. I had no illusions about this when the judges gave me 9.462 for the vault after conferring with one another at length." [ [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/olympics/2004/gymnastics/08/22/bc.olympics.gymnastics.khorkina/ Khorkina Cries Foul] ]

The most obvious testament to Khorkina's vault being wrongly underscored was her performing the same vault in qualifications with 0.1 in deductions for an off-balance step on her landing, receiving a score of 9.512. In finals, she performed the same vault with no step on the landing yet received a score 0.05 lower for a technically better vault. It can be calculated using a simple ratio table that her vault should have properly been given a 9.612, adding 0.15 to her vaulting score. The result is that Svetlana Khorkina still would have lost the All-Around by a tragically close 0.026 of a point. Additionally, even if such adjustments were taken into account, gymnastics experts and commentators suggested that an artificially low vault score of Khorkina's was later negated by an artificially high score on the uneven bars.

The video of her vault can be seen here. [http://youtube.com/watch?v=TbzChnHyCgQ Khorkina's Vault]

Notes

References

* [http://www.gymnasticsresults.com/2004/o2004w.html Gymnastics Results.com]