ATHENS -- Gymnastics Canada's decision to protest the score of bronze medal-winning vaulter Marian Dragulescu revolves around two simple technical errors made by the judges.

First is the list of automatic deductions for various infractions on a dismount that were obviously ignored by most of the six judges:

Out of bounds -- .2 deduction.

Hand on the ground -- .3 deduction.

Steps off of dismount -- .1 deduction each step.

Dragulescu's dismount on his second vault saw him step out of bounds, put his hand on the ground and take two to three steps after his dismount, not to mention coming out of his final twist early, which is also a mandatory deduction.

According to Canadian coach Tony Smith, who is a certified International Gymnastics Federation judge, it warranted at least a .8 deduction, giving Dragulescu a highest possible score of 9.1, assuming everything else in his vault was perfect, which it wasn't.

Instead, the judges scored it as follows: Portugal -- 9.5, Venezuela -- 9.5, Switzerland -- 9.0, Japan -- 9.1, Italy -- 9.25, Peru -- 9.45.

The average of their scores (with the highest and lowest scores thrown out) was 9.325.

Secondly, the code of points dictates the head judge must ensure all of the four scores that count are separated by no more than .20 if the vault is worthy of a 9.0 or higher. The spread in this case was .40.

Had the second vault been scored lower than 9.1, as the rules suggest it should have, Calgary's Kyle Shewfelt would have received the Olympic bronze medal instead of Dragulescu.

The technical committee head, who hails from Romania like Dragulescu, refused to read the protest prompting Canadian officials to pursue advice from other committee members.