Gymnastics' Latest Twist? Robot Judges That See Everything

Thanks to all this, Watanabe explained, no longer would gymnasts -- many of whom, he noted, had started gymnastics as young as age 3 and had trained competitively for more than a decade -- risk having their efforts unceremoniously wasted by human error or interference. "This is a step toward the challenge of justice through technology," Watanabe said. The debut of such technology at the biggest gymnastics meet outside the Olympics represented a meaningful milestone in a sport periodically marred by judging controversies and often wracked with questions about political influence in scoring decisions. For all the grand language, and for all the big-picture prophesying it has inspired about the future of sports -- baseball is already experimenting with robot umpires, and tennis is starting to expand electronic line-calling -- the steps unveiled in Stuttgart were preliminary, and fairly subtle. In gymnastics, at least, humans very much remain in control.