Tempers flared online after a Chinese gymnastics judge was accused by the sport's international ruling body of manipulating scores to help a mainland athlete win a gold medal at last year's Guangzhou Asian Games.
Chinese bloggers pronounced the scandal a national 'embarrassment', while other commentators in the international gymnastics community said it raised questions not just about the integrity of China's gymnastics team but also the sport in general.
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) announced late on Wednesday night it had referred judge Shao Bin to the body's disciplinary committee for violating 'the ethical code and judging rules' during November's Asian Games.
The federation said Shao 'modified an execution score prior to its release without informing either the head execution judge or the superior jury' during the final of the men's artistic floor competition. Shao was serving at the time as a judge on the difficulty panel - theoretically a separate board from the execution judges.
Shao's adjustment of the execution score meant Chinese gymnast Zhang Chenglong moved from second place to tie with South Korean Kim Soo-myun for the gold. The medal was Zhang's first gold at the games, but he went on to win the men's horizontal bar the following day.
The FIG release said Shao had acted on his own initiative and 'with complete disregard for the rules in force', and condemned his attitude as 'wholly unacceptable'. The Chinese gymnastics team distanced itself from Shao's actions, stressing on Thursday that it 'always told judges to obey the rules and to judge fairly in their education'.
'Any actions from anybody that violate international rules are wrong and unacceptable,' the team said.
