Well the men's AA final should put to rest any idea that this code is "genius" and pushing gymnasts towards amazing feats. A gold medallist who celebrated after his third event, because his A score advantage was enough that no-one could catch him, a silver medallist who fell twice on pommel horse but since everyone else fell too it turned out ok, and a bronze medallist with one spectacular event (vault) that allows a score high enough that he can be completely mediocre and lame on every other event. Meanwhile those athletes who actually went clean and competed watchable gymnastics found themselves outside the top 10.

Gymnastics forms a considerable part of my life and day, and I considered for the first time ever, turning off the competition and going to bed, as it truly was one of the most boring and uninspiring competitions I have ever watched.

With this code, the male athletes are virtually unable to be true all-arounders, resulting in athletes who are terrible on 2 or 3 events and good on the rest. Before, All-Around meant that an athlete demonstrated mastery of all the apparatus. Now it means jacking up difficulty on your few good apparatus and trying not to botch the others too disgustingly.

Almost no-one can compete 50 high level skills consistently, so we see all the top men falling, having bad routines, taking steps and generally doing inconsistent, ugly gymnastics. Judging flaws have not been fixed, as seen by the massive overscores of top competitors (Yang Wei's abortion of a high bar routine as a good example). It is now possible to reach the medal stand with a fall, and athletes are entering competitions knowing that even if they hit perfectly, the leader is already far enough ahead of them in difficulty score that he can fall 3 times and still beat them. This does not make for an exciting, watchable, inspiring or interesting competition. Here's to the women putting on a better show tonight, although with the way the games are going so far, I doubt it.