Dressage jury under fire, FEI says they will investigate

[Coreene]

From horses.nl (will translate when I have a sec):

De dressuurjurering ligt na afloop van de Olympische Spelen zwaar onder vuur. Na protest vanuit onder meer het Amerikaanse en het Nederlandse kamp heeft de FEI het besluit genomen om het jureringssysteem van de dressuur te onderzoeken, meldt Horses.nl-correspondent Fabian Brockötter. Vooral over de beoordelingswijze van de voorzitter van de jury, het Duitse jurylid Gotthilf Riexinger, zijn veel klachten.
Na de Grand Prix Spécial vond een ontmoeting plaats tussen de jury en een aantal deelnemende landen over het uitdelen van punten. Teammanager Mariëtte Sanders en KNHS-topsportdirecteur George de Jong representeerden Nederland. In eerste instantie was vooral Nederland kritisch over met name de jurering van Riexinger. Eigen nieuws horses.nl en hier geknipt en geplakt van horses.nl
Het Amerikaanse kamp wakkerde het vuur verder aan, ook zij hadden vooral problemen met het Duitse jurylid. ,“Hoe kan het dat een klein foutje van Steffen Peters zwaar wordt gestraft, terwijl Werth ondanks een grove fout in de piaffe zo hoog eindigt?”, vragen de Amerikanen zich af. ,“De proef van Isabell Werth heeft een hogere moeilijkheidsgraad dan de proef van Peters, daardoor kan ze toch een hogere score halen”, voert Riexinger ter verdediging aan, over de jurering van de kür op muziek.

[Regal_Grace]

It’s mentioned in Horse and Hound…

i started a post on this at the same time you did…

Here is the link and text:

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/397/265861.html

The FEI has been forced to make yet another statement during this Olympic Games.

This time, it concerns a meeting which took place in the competitors’ briefing room, as FEI vice-president Chris Hodson said “at the very unusual time of 1.30am on Monday morning”.

It involved the ground jury, TD, appeal committee, FEI officials and representatives of the Danish, German, Dutch and American teams.

Other teams have raised concerns as to why this was taking place, mid competition, and a second meeting was held the following day with representatives from all competing teams.

The matter is now the subject of an FEI enquiry and a statement is expected soon.

[dutchmike]

The scoring def. reminds me of the eurovision song contests:lol:

[Coreene]

I am sure that Riexner’s response to it all will be a big Eff You, but fingers crossed that moving forward they can clean house a bit. High time that it is scored the same as skating and diving, with the high and low thrown out. There is no place for people like Riexner and Tornblad.

[Coreene]

@dutchmike;3456506

The scoring def. reminds me of the eurovision song contests:lol:

OMG that is my laugh of the day! :lol:

[canyonoak]

Ha!

The chickens come home to roost!

SO, Riexinger and his pal Tornblad may get nice retirement parties from their respective federations…but thanks to the internet, to instant communications, the transparency of the FEI is gonna get a REAL test!

Welcome to the 21st century, horsesport!

[JenJ]

I wont try to translate, but my understanding of the last paragraph is that a small error by Peters was penalized harder than a big error by Werth because Werth’s ride was so much more difficult / higher to begin with. A top level test can survive a bad mistake better than an easier test can survive a small mistake.
Without the error, Werth likely would have scored in the 80s (I’m guessing that part)

[slc2]

WOW.

What really amazes me is that this appears to be a joint action of four rival teams at the top! Maybe each team is complaining about something different, but it is still really interesting that all the different teams would essentially, support eachother and speak up.

I still don’t think it will change the placing, but it sure may change some things, like maybe licenses or discarding a low score.

I think if any score is discarded, it makes more sense to throw out the low score, rather than the low AND the high score. Though someone can try to ‘boost’ a competitor unfairly too.

[Eclectic_Horseman]

Low and high scores should go out. Sometimes biases are unconcious. For example, if a person from one country obtains citizenship in another country and then competes for that second country… I’m just sayin’… maybe the judge from the first country should recuse himself.

[Coreene]

It’s not going to make any change with Hong Kong, but hopefully moving forward they’ll clean house and get rid of this bullshit.

[Coral]

[QUOTE=slc2;3456552]
WOW.

What really amazes me is that this appears to be a joint action of four rival teams at the top! Maybe each team is complaining about something different, but it is still really interesting that all the different teams would essentially, support eachother and speak up.

I still don’t think it will change the placing, but it sure may change some things, like maybe licenses or discarding a low score.

I think if any score is discarded, it makes more sense to throw out the low score, rather than the low AND the high score. Though someone can try to ‘boost’ a competitor unfairly too.[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure why it would surprise you so much that they would agree. Even if the fixing “helps” them, some people regard fairness highly and would prefer to win on an even field rather than one that is slanted. I’ll freely admit that I don’t know much about dressage other than I love watching gorgeous horses move, but any judging with as much subjectivity as this sport has is suspect as far as I’m concerned.

Looking at the number of times where one judge scored a movement very unusually high or low compared to the others just seems wrong and I’m not surprised that the athletes would like a resolution so that they can be seen for what they are instead of constantly feeling like they are at the mercy of the judges’ whims. When you try to understand the judging it’s difficult to fathom how four judges ranked a ride third and one ranked it eighth. He saw something that no one else saw? Perhaps. Perhaps he also saw what he wanted to see. To be clear, I’m not saying there was deliberate “fixing” involved, only that you’re more likely to see the brilliance (or lack) of a ride if you go into it thinking that it will be that way.

[freestyle2music]

As stated many months before

Three months ago the Dutch already complaint about the fact that Riexinger was appointed as head of the judges. Meaning he was allowed to judge all three tests. The reason for the Dutch complaint was that Gotthilff Riexinger scored all Dutch riders significantly low in three different competitions.

When i posted this here on this board everybody was screaming “sour grapes and things like that” .

But you all have seen what happened.

And now we probably get the same cover-up story as we had/have with Brentina.

The FEI will look into it. Hahahahahahaha.

When Riexinger defends himself by saying that IW had a higher degree of difficulty (which is correct) this should reflect the artistic marks, but not the techical marks. And how about the marks for “harmony between horse and rider”

My direct link to Hongkong also told me that Riexinger scored Mythilus down because of being “short in the neck”. (again correct) however I have seen much more horses with the same problem who weren’t scored down.

Never the less it was very wise from the Dutch that they came up with these complaints, because a winner will be taken much more serious that the nation that got robed (USA-SP) of a medal.

Theo

[slc2]

So now I need to defend myself for using the word ‘surprised’?

Come on.

I’m not even going to consider doing that.

I have sheaths to clean, sump pump cisterns to clean out, and a dead mouse in the tack room sink who looks like other mice partly ate him, and he seems FAR more appealing than defending my choice of word, ‘surprised’.

[Coral]

[QUOTE=slc2;3456653]
So now I need to defend myself for using the word ‘surprised’?

Come on.

I’m not even going to consider doing that.

I have sheaths to clean, sump pump cisterns to clean out, and a dead mouse in the tack room sink who looks like other mice partly ate him, and he seems FAR more appealing than defending my choice of word, ‘surprised’.[/QUOTE]

Wow, relax. I wasn’t attacking you. I’m not a part of the long standing dressage war that seems to be going on so don’t assume that I’m out to get you. I was just explaining why it made sense that they would agree even though they are rivals. The same could be said for rival basketball teams complaining about referees or any other sport where subjective measures are used. If you’re at the top you don’t want people to say “Well you only won because of…” you want them to say “Good job on winning”.

[Kareen]

Well one thing is for sure: Dressage has always been big at complaining and blaming all kinds of circumstances. What a joke.

[slc2]

Aren’t you German?:lol:

[YankeeLawyer]

[QUOTE=slc2;3456552]
WOW.

What really amazes me is that this appears to be a joint action of four rival teams at the top! Maybe each team is complaining about something different, but it is still really interesting that all the different teams would essentially, support eachother and speak up.

I still don’t think it will change the placing, but it sure may change some things, like maybe licenses or discarding a low score.

I think if any score is discarded, it makes more sense to throw out the low score, rather than the low AND the high score. Though someone can try to ‘boost’ a competitor unfairly too.[/QUOTE]

Oh, so perhaps some very knowledgeable people on the scene had an issue with the judging also. Interesting.

[YankeeLawyer]

[QUOTE=Kareen;3456692]
Well one thing is for sure: Dressage has always been big at complaining and blaming all kinds of circumstances. What a joke.[/QUOTE]

Do you think the judging was fair and accurate?

[freestyle2music]

[QUOTE=Coreene;3456599]
It’s not going to make any change with Hong Kong, but hopefully moving forward they’ll clean house and get rid of this bullshit.[/QUOTE]

Dream dream dream.

The judges only will get more causius. Like :

German/Dutch/French judge to the Danish/USA/GB judge “hey when you score my fellow country members higher I wil score the competitors of your country higher” High Five
The marks may even be traded on the stockmarket ?!

The only solution that I see is a system where the judges are judged by an independent authority (preferably from Mars or Venus)

Theo

[Elegante_E]

Seriously, would it kill the dressage powers that be to have at least the head of the judges not be such an interested party? Kind of makes one wish we could just have judges from countries not competing. May not be of the caleber of the top judges but hopefully at least if there were scoring mistakes they would be truly mistakes.