As a coach this is a question I often get asked … as many parents find it hard to know why their child didn’t do as well as they expected to.
Gymnastics is a very subjective sport. A 2 degree bend can make the difference between a medal or no medal.
A simple guide (for parents) to what judges look for.
Please note that I’ve simplified things to try and make it easier to understand.
When scoring a routine there are 2 elements to the score:
The gymnasts total score is made up of adding the D score and E score together.
How is the D score worked out?
The D score is made up of 2 parts:
- what skills are included (different skills can be worth more depending on how difficult the skill is)
- the requirements as set by the competition rules (for example the rules may state the gymnast needs 2 linked jumps on floor)
Each requirement is usually worth 0.5 at general/GfA competitions and low level artistic competitions.
At higher levels, gymnasts can increase their D score by linking skills.
How is the E score worked out?
The E score is judged out of 10 … with each judge taking points off that for errors in execution. These are called deductions. So the final E score is how much is lost in deductions taken away from 10.
For example with jumps on floor …
- not jumping high enough … 0.1 deduction (or even 0.3 if they hardly get off the floor at all)
- not pointing toes … 0.1 deduction
- bent legs … 0.1 deduction (or 0.3 or 0.5 for big bends)
- Landing with feet apart … 0.1 or 0.3 deduction
In the lower level routines there are often shapes and balances.
These can look lovely but have lots of deductions:
- not holding a balance long enough … 0.3 deduction
- putting hands on the floor to aid balance … 0.5 deduction
- falling … 1.0 deduction
All of these deductions get added up and are taken off the 10 to give the final execution score. So our gymnast who did a jump with not going high enough, not pointing toes, bent legs and landing with feet apart could have lost 0.4 on that one skill.
So why didn’t they medal as the routine was lovely?
There are lots of lovely routines … and it’s the judges job to try and tell them apart. All the little deductions I talked about above are taken into account.
Just because they didn’t medal, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good routine … but that they lost more than other gymnasts on that particular time.