Explaining Men's Gymnastics Scoring

After the first two rounds of competition, our Men's Olympic Team is in first place!!! We're definitely in position to earn a medal! Go Team USA!

So, how does the gymnastics scoring system work? A lot of people watching gymnastics are used to the traditional 10.0 point system where the perfect score a gymnast can earn is a 10.0. So, it may seem confusing with scores such as a 16.7 or a 15.8. I think that explaining the new system of scoring might make watching the gymnastics competition a little more enjoyable. So I'll explain how it works.

In modern gymnastics, all the different gymnasts have different routines packed with skills they have learned to do. Since one gymnast's routine might be harder than another competitor's, it wouldn't be fair to give all routines a starting value of 10.0. To fix this, a gymnast's score is a sum of 2 separate scores: a "difficulty" score, and an "execution" score.

The difficulty score is determined by the skills put into the routine (except on vault, where each different vault is just given a base difficulty value as it's not a combination of skills, like other events.) The other five events each have five types of skills, called element groups. For example, the five element groups on the floor are non-acrobatic elements (like presses and handstand holds), forward moving acrobatic elements, backward moving acrobatic elements, acrobatic elements moving in a sideways direction or other jumping elements, and an element group for a dismounting pass of a "C" difficulty letter or higher. I'll explain...

If a gymnast has a skill that is classified as one of those element groups, they get five tenths of a point for fulfilling that element group. So, by filling all five element groups they can earn 2.5 points. In addition, each skill has a difficulty level denoted by an alphabetic letter. "A" skills are worth .1, "B" skills are worth .2, "C" skills are worth .3, and so on. "F" level skills are generally the hardest skills that gymnasts can do, of course gymnasts continually create new skills to add to the sport. In addition to the 2.5 points, a gymnast can earn several more points from the difficulty of the skills they perform to make up their difficulty score.

The execution score starts with a value of 10.0 as most people are used to, and any mistakes or form breaks (bent legs, bobbles, etc.) made during the routine are subtracted from this score.

So, if an Olympic gymnast has a difficulty level of 7.6 for his routine, and makes mistakes to earn 1.2 points worth of deduction, the "difficulty" score for his routine would be 6.4, and if his execution is nearly flawless, he might get a 9.9 for his "execution" score. Thus, the gymnast's total score for his routine would be 16.3. (A very good score.)

I hope that this helps people better understand the scoring system in the upcoming competitions. Be sure to tune in today for the Men's Team Finals, where medals will be awarded (hopefully to us!)

Go USA!