The Complications of Gymnastics (Minus All the Flips and Twists)

Today I had a wonderfully confusing conversation with my coach. She is an official judge for USAG, so she knows all the rules for competing, and what the difficulty is for each skill. Now, I'm going to attempt to explain some of the things we talked about, although I am pretty sure that by the end of this paragraph, most of you will decide that maybe that essay you're procrastinating for isn't so bad, or thinking, yeah, I do have things to do. And I totally get that.


1. The first thing you have to know is that in the JO (Junior Olympic) scoring system, every score is out of 10, and everything you do wrong is deducted from a 10.0. (Pessimistic, right?) So in reality, 10.0 is a perfect score.

2. Every level has a different set of scoring guide lines. These are extensive. For example, Level 9s must have at least 3 As, 4 Bs, and 1 C, but you cannot have more than 1 D, and you may not have any Es, or else your routine will be voided. (You receive a 0.00) Then, Level 9s do not actually start at a 10.0, you start at a 9.7, which means that you can get up to three tenths of bonus, which you earn by making connections, and doing extremely hard skills. For example, competing a B skill and immediately following it with a C skill earns you one extra tenth. On beam, I do a flic-- (also known as a back handspring: B) layout (C), so that bumps my start value up to a 9.8, and then I have another CC connection which bumps it up to a 10.0.

Oh, okay. Right. Now I get it...... Photo Courtesy of: Zero

3. What the heck are As, Bs, and Cs? Each skill that is actually "real" has a difficulty value. There are literally thousands of skills, so I'm sure that USAG has had a real fun time doing this. The easiest are As, like a tuck jump on beam, and the hardest are Es, like a Double Layout on floor. If you really want to look at the entire code of points, just go here!

4. By now, you may be comparing the U of U gymnastics meets you may or may not have watched with the Olympics. Or maybe the scoring system I've explained with the Olympics. Yes, they do have a different scoring system! You were right! Congrats. The Elite scoring system, used in the Olympics, is more reasonable with the ever-changing and ever-daring world of Gymnastics. Instead of the highest possible score being a 10.0, there is no highest score in this system. There are two scores that are added together to created a final score: The difficulty and the execution. The execution score is out of 10, just like the one I have been explaining, and is based on how well the athlete performs each skill in her routine. The difficulty starts at zero, and increases as the gymnast performs harder and harder skills. So really, there is no "highest score" for this system, because as gymnasts perform harder and harder skills, the difficulty score will just keep rising. Here is an example of this system, used at the Olympics.

Difficulty: 6.5, Execution: 9.0, Score: 15.5 Photo Courtesy of: Youtube

5. Deductions. Fun for all. Almost everything you can think of can be deducted for, but at least when you get a high score, you know you've earned it. I literally mean everything. Flexed feet, bent knees, a few degrees from handstand, a wobble on your landing, and even wearing nail polish. Which is why I wince every time I see a snowboarder/skier dude drag both hands along the ground on a landing and get nearly perfect points. *Facepalm. But really, it's true.

I'm sure that was a ton of fun to read, and now I'm sure everything is just so cleared up now! Hehe, noooot.

~Rose