How Does Gymnastics Scoring Work? Difficulty, Execution and the End of the Perfect Ten
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For most of the twentieth century a gymnast started from ten and lost fractions for errors, and the perfect score was the sport's most famous number. It has not existed since 2006. The system now adds a difficulty score with no ceiling to an execution score that still starts at ten, which means a routine can be worth more than fifteen and that two gymnasts performing flawlessly can finish two points apart. The change was made to fix a specific problem, and it created a different one.
Why the ten was abolished
The old system compressed everything at the top. By the 1990s the leading gymnasts were performing skills far beyond what the scale had been designed for, and once several competitors were being marked at 9.9, the difference between an extremely hard routine performed well and an easier one performed perfectly disappeared. Judges were left resolving the tie with hundredths, which invited inconsistency and, in a sport with a long history of national blocs in the judging panel, suspicion. The breaking point was the men's all-around final at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where a scoring error in the start value of a high bar routine cost Yang Tae-young a medal, the mistake was admitted afterwards, and the result stood. The governing body introduced an open-ended system in 2006.
The two scores
Every routine is now marked twice by separate panels and the results added:
- •The difficulty score, built from the value of the skills performed, each rated from A upward on a scale where every letter is worth a tenth more, plus credit for required elements and for connecting skills directly together
- •The execution score, which starts at 10.0 and has deductions taken from it for form, technique and control
- •The two are added, so a typical elite routine might be 6.0 in difficulty plus 8.3 in execution for a total of 14.3
- •A third element, neutral deductions, is subtracted from the total for things such as stepping outside the floor area, exceeding the time limit or a coach's intervention
- •There is no upper limit on difficulty, which is the whole point of the reform
What execution judges take off
The deductions are codified in detail and applied by a panel whose highest and lowest marks are discarded before averaging, which limits the damage a single outlier can do. Small errors cost a tenth: bent knees, flexed feet, separated legs, a slightly short handstand. Medium errors cost three tenths, large ones five. A step on landing is a tenth, a large step or hop three tenths, and a fall is a flat eight tenths plus whatever form deductions accompanied it, which is why a fall is usually decisive rather than merely costly. Amplitude, meaning height and extension, is judged throughout, and a routine performed correctly but small will lose to the same routine performed large. The cumulative effect is that execution scores cluster in a narrow band near the top of the field, typically between 7.5 and 8.8, which means that difficulty decides most finals.
The events and their quirks
Women compete on vault, uneven bars, beam and floor; men on floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and high bar. Vault is scored differently from everything else, since it is a single skill rather than a routine, so each vault has a fixed value from a published table and the gymnast is judged on execution from the moment of takeoff, with two attempts averaged in an apparatus final. Beam carries a time limit of ninety seconds and the heaviest penalty structure for balance, since a wobble that would be invisible elsewhere is a deduction here. Floor for women is performed to music with choreography requirements, for men without. Rings adds strength positions judged on how still they are held. A skill performed for the first time at a world championship or Olympics can be named after the gymnast who performed it and entered in the code of points, which is how Simone Biles has five elements bearing her name across three apparatus.
What the reform did and did not fix
The open-ended system solved the compression problem and rewarded genuine difficulty, and it made the arithmetic transparent enough that a spectator with the code of points can follow it. The criticisms are real too. It pushes gymnasts towards ever more dangerous skills, since a tenth of difficulty is easier to gain than a tenth of execution, and the injury consequences in a sport performed mostly by teenagers are not trivial; the governing body has responded by deliberately undervaluing certain high-risk elements, a decision that caused an argument when Biles's vault was rated lower than its difficulty suggested. Artistry, which the old system rewarded implicitly, has less purchase in a scheme that counts skills. And the scores are now unintelligible to a casual viewer in a way that a mark out of ten never was, which the sport's broadcasters have complained about since the day it changed.
The takeaway
Since 2006 a routine is marked by two panels and the results added: an open-ended difficulty score built from the rated value of the skills and their connections, and an execution score starting at ten with codified deductions for form, control and landing, a fall costing eight tenths. Vault is scored from a fixed table for a single skill. The change was made because scores had compressed at the top and a judging error at Athens in 2004 decided a medal, and its cost is more dangerous routines and less rewarded artistry.