Welcome to Flipped Decisions!
This website was created to fill some gaps in gymnastics judging resources. Many available resources focus on the technical aspects of judging, such as identifying elements, understanding knowledge, and applying the rules. While there are numerous technical supports for judging women’s gymnastics, there is limited material for men’s gymnastics. Therefore, MAG technical judging resources are provided here. The technical aspects of judging are important groundwork skills, without which a judge has little chance of success. However, judges' education rarely extends beyond those technical elements for any gymnastics discipline.
A gymnast must have both technical skills and the ability to perform under competition pressure. The same applies to judges. It is not enough just to possess technical knowledge; a judge must also be able to apply that knowledge effectively under the pressure they face during competitions. Just as gymnasts can prepare themselves to better handle the mental aspects of performing under pressure, judges can do the same. However, there are currently few resources available to guide judges in developing the less tangible mental skills that lead to more accurate and less biased scoring on the competition floor. I aim to provide judges with better resources to help them understand various judging biases and other causes of inaccurate scores, so they can be better equipped to manage these conscious and subconscious influences.
One thing that has become clear while I have been reading hundreds of research papers on officiating, bias, and decision-making is that there is no place that brings it all together. There is no book, website, or single source that considers the multiple perspectives of researchers, judges, coaches, gymnasts, and judging leadership. Author Toni Morrison said, “If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.” So, I started writing... Not quite a book, but this is a space to share ideas, develop thoughts, and create a forum for my fellow judging colleagues to share their perspectives. If there’s a website you want to reference that doesn’t exist yet, you need to create it... so here it is. Welcome.
Meet the Team
Kathi-Sue Rupp (she/her)
Kathi-Sue Rupp is an FIG Category 2 Men’s Artistic Gymnastics (MAG) judge and has been judging for over 20 years. She is currently the highest-rated female MAG judge in the Americas. She holds a Masters in Sports Psychology and has done post-graduate study examining gymnastics judging biases. Kathi-Sue is a former gymnast, parent of a competitive gymnast, and has extensive judging and coaching experience in the USA, Great Britain, and Belgium, bringing a diverse and international perspective to what is shared with you here.
Danae Rupp (they/them), Critical Consultant
Danae Rupp is an FIG Brevet judge and has been a certified MAG judge for over a decade. In their first year of US National certification, they were the youngest MAG judge to hold that rating in the USA. Danae has judged NCAA and Junior National competitions in the USA, adding to their early judging experience in Great Britain.
Danae's insights, feedback, and artistic contributions have been invaluable and essential to the development of content for this website.
Darby Summers (she/they, fae/faer), Webmaster
Having no gymnastics background or credentials at all (besides being dragged to countless gymnastics meets throughout childhood), Darby does an excellent job of checking that content is understandable to a broad audience.
More than that, though, Darby works tirelessly behind the scenes to bring the thoughts from my brain to your screen in a coherent manner. She is the driving creative force behind this website; without her, this website would have remained an unrealized aspiration.
