With less than one month until the 2024 Olympics, teams are starting to announce who will be heading to Paris in late July. Those selections will be made for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics squad this weekend at trials in Minneapolis, with the men’s team set to be named Saturday and the women’s team Sunday.
Among those vying to make the team are seven-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles and reigning Olympic all-around champion Suni Lee.
For many years, understanding gymnastics was pretty simple — falls are bad, and a 10 is the best score! Some of the old rules still stand, but scoring in the sport is more complicated than it was in past decades.
Here's everything to know about modern scoring in gymnastics so you can watch Biles and the rest of Team USA contend for Olympic glory with an expert eye.
The end of the Perfect 10
Scoring in gymnastics has changed significantly since the days of Nadia Comăneci and her illustrious "Perfect 10." The current scoring system can seem less intuitive than the previous one to audiences who do not follow the sport between the Olympic Games.
The Perfect 10 still exists in gymnastics, but it is no longer the only metric used to calculate a score. Today's gymnasts receive scores in two separate categories for each routine: difficulty and execution. The difficulty score is open-ended, while execution is scored out of a 10.00.
The difficulty and execution scores are combined to produce the final number. To optimize their scores, gymnasts perform the most difficult routines they can while minimizing execution deductions.
Since the open-ended scoring system was implemented in 2006, no gymnast has received a Perfect 10 execution score. A small number of gymnasts, including Biles, have gotten very close, coming within a tenth of a point in the execution category.
How scores are calculated
Each gymnast's execution score starts at 10.00 points and is deducted for every visible error. The execution judges subtract points for falls, form breaks, poor landings, lack of artistry and more.
A separate panel of judges determines the difficulty score, which starts from zero and is additive. In women’s gymnastics, each routine receives points for the eight most difficult elements, while in men’s gymnastics, 10 elements are counted. Gymnasts earn points for those skills based on their difficulty and can earn bonus points for connecting multiple skills together.
For example, here's the breakdown of Biles' score on her Yurchenko double pike vault on the first day of the U.S. championships in Fort Worth, Texas:
Difficulty score (6.400) + execution score (9.400) = 15.800
The very high difficulty combined with a very high execution score made that an excellent score and the highest of this year's championships. It is likely to be the highest-scoring piece of gymnastics we will see at the trials, as well.
This open-ended system encourages skills that have high degrees of difficulty in the Code of Points, but if a gymnast cannot execute the skill cleanly, the execution deductions could outweigh the benefits of a higher difficulty score.
Biles is so good because she executes the most difficult skills with very minimal deductions.
What is considered a good score in gymnastics?
The easiest way to determine a good score on each event is to look at the execution component of the score, which is typically displayed next to the total score on the NBC broadcast.
Gymnasts who have less than a point to a point and a half of deductions for routines or execution scores in the 8.5-10.0 range are likely to be in good positions. Look to the corresponding difficulty score to know just how good — the higher, the better.
The four apparatuses have different scoring potentials, so a good score on the balance beam may not be the same as a good score on the vault. Here's an estimate of what the world's best gymnasts will be shooting for on each apparatus at the trials and in Paris:
- Vault: 14+ is a good score; 14.5+ could contend for an Olympic medal.
- Uneven bars: 14+ is a good score; 14.8+ could contend for an Olympic medal.
- Balance beam: 13.5+ is a good score; 14.2+ could contend for an Olympic medal.
- Floor exercise: 13.5+ is a good score; 14.0+ could contend for an Olympic medal.
The actual scores that will win medals on each apparatus in Paris may differ, but those are the numbers top contenders have been receiving over the past year.
How do team scores work in gymnastics?
In the qualification round at the Olympics, four gymnasts from each five-member team compete on each apparatus, with the three highest scores counting toward the team total.
The top eight teams in qualifications advance to the finals, where three athletes from each team compete on each apparatus and all scores count.
More from Olympics
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- Sha’Carri Richardson is headed to Paris after winning the women’s 100 meters at Olympic trials
- Grant Fisher punches ticket to Paris
- French swimmer's cold call email to Michael Phelps' coach could end in homegrown Olympic glory
How gymnasts use the Code of Points to maximize their scores
At last year's world championships, Biles had a 1.5-point lead on her closest competitor, Rebeca Andrade, in terms of difficulty, giving her a higher scoring potential and a buffer equal to at least one fall. Biles had more than a 2-point advantage on world all-around bronze medalist Shilese Jones, her closest American competitor.
Biles does the hardest gymnastics in the sport and still maintains some of the highest execution scores. She does not have to choose whether to focus on difficulty or execution, but other gymnasts are typically known for one or the other.
Lee is renowned for her excellent form and attention to detail. She does have a high start value on bars and beam, but she typically opts to perform less difficult routines on floor and vault, focusing on maximizing the execution component of her score.
Conversely, Joscelyn Roberson, a member of the 2023 world championship team, is a quintessential example of a gymnastics daredevil. She performs risky routines with high start values but does not always have the highest execution scores, and her total scores sometimes suffer as a result.
The scoring system rewards both daredevils and technicians, but the best in the world make the toughest skills look easy.
The U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games air live on NBC and Peacock from Thursday through Sunday.
