SHANGHAI - Chinese judge Shao Bin, who was accused of breaking the rules during last year's Asian Games by modifying scores to help a Chinese gymnast, rebuked a sanction by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) as "ridiculous" and "disappointing".

Shao was a judge on the "D" panel, which evaluates the difficulty of routines, for the men's floor exercise final at the Asian Games in Guangzhou last November. But the FIG accused Shao of changing an execution score without informing either the judge in charge of execution or the superior jury. The altered mark moved Chinese gymnast Zhang Chenglong from second into a tie for first place.

The FIG Disciplinary Commission announced its decision on Tuesday that Shao's judging brevet will be downgraded to a category four (from two) and will be responsible for covering the legal costs of 7,200 Swis Francs (about $8,937) following a hearing held on April 27, which also heard the witness testimony of Andrian Stoica, the men's technical committee president who was present on-site at the time of the act.

"The FIG ruling is ridiculous and very disappointing," Shao told Xinhua during an interview late on Wednesday. "The FIG's charge against me is groundless. They have failed to provide any convincing evidence."

In artistic gymnastics, there are two judges who determine the difficulty of the routine and award a D-score, and four judges for execution who give an E-score.

The D-score is open ended and judges can add points based on the difficulty of required elements. The E-score has a base score of 10.0 and judges deduct points for mistakes.

Shao argued that FIG rules have a clause that D1 judge has the right to "control" the final score and therefore he didn't break the rules.

FIG media operations officer Philippe Silacci, however, said in an email to Xinhua that "D1 judges are not authorized to do so", without giving detailed explanation.

A Chinese gymnastics expert who asked not to be named argued that Andrian Stoica should also be punished as the final scores for each athlete could be released only after he confirmed valid on-site.

"As the chief of Superior Jury, Stoica also had a fault on the matter. He should not escape punishment if the FIG insists on Shao's guilt," said the expert.

According to the FIG statement, Shao has the right to lodge an appeal before Sept 9, but the Chinese judge said has not made up his mind on next action.

"I need to take time to consider it carefully, because even if I lodge an appeal, it would be very possible an effort in vain in view of the current situation that the FIG are too subjective," he said.

The FIG has been under fire in recent years as its complicated and less transparent scoring system led to several disputes in international competitions. The best known example was in Athens Olympics in 2004 when Yang Tae-young of South Korea, who finished with a bronze in the men's all-around title, was wrongly docked a tenth of a point on his second-to-last routine, the parallel bars.

"For the sake of gymnastics itself, the FIG must remedy the defects in rules and uphold fairness," said the Chinese expert.