New Info Regarding Ben Lowe’s Judging At The 2024 Olympics

You can read our entire breakdown of the kerfuffle here.

Two days ago, in an email bound missive from the ISA, it was announced that 44-year old Olympic judge Ben Lowe was to be removed from the judging panel. The reason? A well-circulated image featuring the Australian judge posing with Bede Durbidge and Ethan Ewing.

Per the ISA:

It is inappropriate for a judge to be interacting in this manner with an athlete and their team. To protect the integrity and fairness of the ongoing competition, and in accordance with the ISA Code of Conduct and IOC Code of Ethics, the ISA Executive Committee has decided to remove the judge from the judging panel for the remainder of the competition.

The issue has been related by many Brazilian commentators back to Tokyo 2020, where they claim that he repeatedly scored Gabriel Medina below average. Though this was taken from a miniscule sample size of four heats, the narrative has continued, and no doubt played some role in the decision by the ISA.

Now, thanks to the transparency of the Olympics, the Inertia has dug up Ben’s scores from this Olympics.

“Lowe tends to underscore waves,” writes Evan Quarnstrom. “He judged 16 heats that featured Brazilians and/or Australians in the Paris 2024 Olympics before his removal. Twenty-two percent of the time he scored above the average and the other 22 percent of the time he hit the score exactly on the mark. 

“When you look at the breakdown of the scores, he actually underscored his compatriots more than the Brazilians. His Australian scores were on average 0.16 points below the average, while his Brazilian scores were on average 0.11 points below the average. In conclusion, at least at the 2024 Olympics, the claim that Lowe unfairly scores Brazilians doesn’t hold water.”

You can read our entire breakdown of the kerfuffle here.