Can you explain Olympic Gymnastics scoring to me?

[Libby Pritchett]

I'll admit that the only time I ever watch gymnastics is during the Olympics, so I don't really understand all the ins and outs. I didn't watch the other night, so this is my first time to watch in 4 years.

I'm watching the women's team event tonight, and I don't understand the scoring at all. I thought a "perfect" score was 10? So, why are their scores like 15-16 something? Is that a cumulative score? How do they get that number?

[Darcy Baldwin]

They seem to revamp the scoring system every few years. I wonder if anyone really understands !!

[BrattyMeg]

Execution score is a 10 so they deduct from that when you see deductions

each routine and vault have a max start value based on difficulty.

The vaults the American's did were all 3 a max 6.5

so they start with a 6.5 + 10 execution score=16.5 max total for a perfect vault

They all did well with few deductions so their scores were all 15-16 points

[Libby Pritchett]

ahhh that makes sense. Thanks Meg!

[NeverendingJen]

Meg explained it better than I could.

[SmallMoments]

Is it a good thing or bad thing that my mind went to the scoring for the SWEET SHOPPE Olympics?

[SarahMD]

IDK - and WHY are there deductions on seemingly PERFECT routines?

[mjajmom]

So what is the highest possible score you can get?

I'll have to admit that I liked the "old" scoring system better when a perfect 10 was easy to understand.

[Lyd]

Every routine has a different "highest possible" score based on the difficulty of the routine.

They've been using this new scoring system for quite a while now, and I like it. It makes things a little more complicated, but it rewards those that are doing harder stuff. And, to be honest, there were getting to be way too many 10s back in the day. Perfect is pretty dang hard to achieve. Even Mary Lou Retton's Perfect 10 vault wasn't perfect.