Roy Tomizawa Gymnastics, Others, Rio Olympics

You’re Number One! And You Too! And You Too! You as Well! A Four-Way Tie at the World Gymnastics Championships

Four gold medal winners China’s Fan Yilin, from left, Madison Kocian of the U.S., Russia’s Viktoriia Komova and Russia’s Daria Spiridonova pose after their uneven bars exercise at the women's apparatus final competition at the World Artistic Gymnastics championships at the SSE Hydro Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
Four gold medal winners China’s Fan Yilin, from left, Madison Kocian of the U.S., Russia’s Viktoriia Komova and Russia’s Daria Spiridonova pose after their uneven bars exercise at the women’s apparatus final competition at the World Artistic Gymnastics championships at the SSE Hydro Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

15.366 – you would think that a score to the thousandth would be hard to tie, but it can happen. At the World Gymnastics Championship in Glasgow, Scotland, as many as six judges managed to put up scores that placed FOUR gymnasts at exactly 15.366 in the uneven bars final.

And so, Russians, Viktoria Komova and Daria Spiridonova, China’s Fan Yilin, and American Madison Kocian all received gold medals and then listened to three national anthems in succession.

The International Olympic Committee does not like ties in gymnastics, so has a tie breaker based on so called “start values” and “execution marks”, but to many, including FIG (the International Gymnastics Federation), ties are the right call. And yet, four? American Gabby Douglas finished fifth, and this is what she had to say according to AP: “I’ve never seen that before,” said reigning Olympic champion Gabby Douglas, who finished fifth. “I was just like really judges? Come on now!”