Dignity and Bollocks

Dignity!

All the Chinese competitor had to do on her final jump, really, was land on her feet. Xin Xin Guo led after the first round with a score of 103.17, and was the last to jump. It was so very funny to see the look on the eventual (Swiss) winner's face when Guo landed so badly. Trying not to look to gleeful. Of course, being Swiss, she had a (German) word for what she was feeling.

But this isn't really a sport, because there are judges, so it's all completely random and bollocks. Some judge the take-off, others the form in the air, and two judge the landing. The landing marks are out of 3. They're averaged and then added to the average to give a total landing score out of 9.

So you score 103 on your first jump, by landing well. Your second jump is just as good, but you land on your face. So you lose a maximum of nine points, right? So her score might have been as low as 90 or, say, 94 at the highest. But she scored 71.68, somehow being penalised around 30 points for sliding down on the slope on her face. That can't be right, can it?