Judging has cropped up as one of the prime concerns in gymnastics lately. Don’t you think so? With Paris 2024 giving birth to the entire bronze medal fiasco, followed by the USA Gymnastics’ judges now coming under fire for their stricter NCAA scoring patterns in 2025, this side of the sport can hardly be ignored. But has there been progressive development to fill the existing gaps ever since? Well, USAG seems to be working as per its procedure, but it is something that isn’t settling well with the fans.

Prior to the NCAA season unfolding, in December 2024, USA Gymnastics conducted the Judges Selection Committee meeting. Naturally, the prime agenda was to select judges who would go on to be part of the officiating panel at various gymnastics events, say the 2025 Winter Cup, the Jesolo Trophy, etc. Thus, a recommendation to accept the January-May 2025 judging assignments was listed. These judging assignments are to be finalized after the continental and intercontinental judging courses are complete. But looking at the names of judges on the list, fans chimed in with disappointing reactions.

When the same was posted on a Reddit thread, one of the fans presented opined, “Man if Cheryl Hamilton or Kittia Carpenter decide to stop judging someday USAG is gonna be hurting for judges. The qualification process has to be changed.” Well, this was a rather common fan opinion, as many worried how things would look problematic if more judges weren’t promoted within USA Gymnastics.

To be precise, as per the minutes of the USA Gymnastics’ December 13 meeting, only 6 judges were part of the roll call. These included Kittia Carpenter, Kristie Phillips Bannister, Cheryl Hamilton, Chellsie Memmel, and Annie Heffernon. Also, Tom Koll, the WPC Chair, was consulted due to recusals. Thus, the numbers and the names both led many ardent followers of the sport to raise their eyebrows over the way judges’ selection was working for USA Gymnastics.

After all, the Judges Selection Committee was vouching to come up with a more open and transparent system for apparatus and competition assignments this year onwards, right? For the longest time, fans have complained that there’s been a real lack of objectivity and transparency in how US WAG judges are assigned. Remember hardly a few years ago, half of the international judging opportunities went to two judges on this committee? Well, such details aren’t slipping from the gymnastics fans’ minds.

Fans wish USA Gymnastics changed its ways

One of the fans presented a rather detailed opinion. They wrote, “US WAG had 28 FIG judges last quad. Most of them didn’t get enough experience to get promoted even if they score well enough on the test. Part of that is that USAG sends athletes to comparatively few meets. The other part is that until last year no one was enforcing USAG’s conflict of interest policy with this committee. So in 2022, Hamilton and Carpenter, the two judges on the committee at the time, gave themselves half of the international assignments.”

The fan also raised concern that only one of the highest-rated USA gymnastics judges was under 65 at present. So things will start looking concerning if there aren’t as many promotions. But the criteria to be a USA Brevet or National Judge is hardly that simple, right? As per USA Gymnastics, the judge must attend a USA Brevet or National Judges’ Course by invitation only. These courses are conducted every four years. After successfully passing all the course requirements, the judge also needs to pass a test. Well, there’s more, and also, reaching the course stage itself is no plain-sailing task.

Thus, the fact that the process seems way too complicated led a fan to note, “If only we didn’t have a HUGE POOL of fantastic, smart, experienced Brevet and Elite (later renamed National) judges that could no longer advance in their careers because USAG decided to restrict assignments and advancement to former National team members.” Well, as per USA Gymnastics, it appears that to be eligible for the judges’ course itself, one needs to either be a current Level 10 judge who has held the rating since Dec 31, 2018, and is interested in testing up to a national rating, or any former Elite National Team member who is interested in judging.

This is something that the fans believe is limiting the option’s availability. Too many rules, right? And some are claiming that they are not able to see USA Gymnastics speeding things up despite the backlash. “Yeah, this really feels like there should be a cut-and-dried system. Everybody submits their availability, and international assignments are made with potential promotion in mind. This could be done by spreadsheet instead of by committee. There was talk in late 2023 of developing an open and transparent assignment system to start in 2025, but either that didn’t happen yet or it’s buried in some documentation I haven’t come across.”

Well, suggestions are flowing in from all corners. It’s clear that, given the current order of things, fans have surely become sensitive to the judging part. There have been talks around the NCAA judges’ strict scoring policies this season, evidenced by the drop in the perfect 10 scores. Even a worthy vault performance from Kailin Chio could not garner that flawless score. Also, some of the sports followers have been opining that the scoring change is only affecting West Coast teams, while SEC teams are still being overscored.

And now, with how things are working for USA Gymnastics, another fan commented, “I really wonder why this committee exists when it’s just a walking conflict of interest. There’s got to be a less messy way of making these assignments.” But until that day arrives, some of the fans are joining another dot. One of them questioned, “The absence of Anna Li on assignments is interesting to me. This was decided a month before her suspension came down which suggests that they had a heads-up about it (since they’d been giving her regular assignments during the rest of her century-long investigation)”

Again, this places USA Gymnastics under the questioning umbrella. Perhaps it looks like it’s the time they start making things more transparent than ever. What do you think? Let us know!