Gymnastic scoring and judgment
Competition judges will assess gymnastics progress from time to time. There will be five of them – a referee and four judges sitting apart, but close, to the apparatus. They will deduct fractions of a mark for faults in the execution of your routine. All four judges record on mark on printed forms, which are then taken to the referee. The referee rejects the top and bottom scores, add ups the middle two and divides the total by two to arrive at your score. For example, suppose the judges’ marks are 9.40, 9.30, 9.20 and 9.00. The referee deletes 9.40 and 9.00 and adds up the remaining two for a total of 18.50 which boils down to 9.25 after division.
Usually the marks flashed up on the electric scoreboard are the ones arrived at from the judges’ original scores. However, if there are major differences in some of the marks, the referee will ask one or more of the judges to reconsider their verdicts. Should agreement not be reached, the referee will refer the matter to a jury of appeal. At women’s world championships, six judges and a referee are employed, and presently the men are considering using an extra judge. At all major events, compulsory exercise requiring every gymnast to perform an identical routine, are followed by voluntary exercises; in which gymnast perform their own set of routines.
Judging gymnastics requires a tremendous, knowledge of the sports, and many ex-gymnasts volunteer their services. In gymnastic judges want to see exercises that include all the combinations, difficulty elements, and sequences that the rules require. Assessing elements of difficulty values arrives at the principle of difficulty in an exercise. Your coach will tell you the value of the elements you are learning. Every exercise, depending on your age, must contain a number of those valued elements. There is also a section of the total mark allocated for men as follows: Courage 0.2, Originality 0.2 and Virtuosity 0.2 making a total of 0.6, which may be added to their score.
Women have a bonus of 0.3 for all exercises with a 9.7 tariff. The bonus consists of 0.2 for original elements and 0.1 for extra difficulty. But your greatest concern will be over the marks deducted. The largest part of your possible score is for execution. You will be penalized for faults with as much as 0.5 for a fall. Wobbles, arm and foot faults may cost you from 0.1 to 0.3. Gymnasts’ elegance and amplitude will also be judged.
The Olympics, world championships, and other major world events start with the team event consisting of compulsory and voluntary routines. Six gymnasts make up a team and the lowest score at every apparatus is deleted.
That leaves the scores of five gymnasts to be added, together at event apparatus and the final team score is the total of four women’s and six men’s apparatus. The maximum women’s team total is 400 points and for men 600 points. In gymnastics the terms “marks” and “points” mean the same thing. In the individual competition for the overall champion, the thirty-six who qualified from the team event perform voluntary exercise only. The same applies in the finals when the gymnasts who qualified compete for title on every piece of apparatus.
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