All the things Olympic gymnastics announcers will literally never tell you

Hi, hello, the 2024 Summer Olympic Games have finally made their way to Paris, and we literally cannot wait to see the U.S. Gymnastics Team absolutely smash it. This year’s team features an all-star group of athletes, including the legendary Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera. And while you don’t need to know every rule and regulation to appreciate their incredible skill and athleticism, that doesn’t mean non-gymnasts don’t want to learn details about scoring—nor does it mean we don’t deserve in-depth technical analysis from commentators.

ICYMI, TV coverage during the 2016 Olympics was actually criticized for its lack of information about the specific rules of gymnastics (the New Yorker wrote a whole piece about it, too)—especially after NBC’s chief marketing officer for the Olympics at the time, John Miller, said of women viewers, “They’re less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. It’s sort of like the ultimate reality show and miniseries wrapped into one.” Okay... and what about it?!

Again, you don’t need to have a PhD in scorekeeping to enjoy gymnastics, but it definitely helps to know what’s up. After all, there’s way more to a floor routine than sticking the landing. Every movement counts, and fans want to know what baseline the judges follow when they decide who takes home the gold! According to NBC, some of this year's analysts include gymnastics legends like Samantha Peszek, Tim Daggett, John Roethlisberger, Laurie Hernandez, and Justin Spring. Hopefully, they'll provide all the context and technical details we need, but until then, here are some facts to keep in mind as we head into the 2024 Olympic Games. 

The points system, in a nutshell

Kay, so let’s break it down real quick. Scores in gymnastics have two elements: a difficulty score, aka the D-score (which starts at zero points and then the value of all the skills and combinations in a routine get added), and an execution score, aka the E-score (which starts at 10 and then points for mistakes like wobbles or falls are deducted). For example, a gymnast with a D-score of 5.5 and an E-score of 9.1 would get a total score of 14.6. In theory, scores can be infinite since the difficulty score has no limit, but scores in the 15 range are considered good and scores in the 16s are considered amazing.

TL;DR: The final score = difficulty score + execution score — penalties.

A note about penalties…

Also called “neutral deduction,” penalties are deducted from the total (difficulty + execution) score and include things that, according to the Code of Points, don’t have anything to do with difficulty or how the gymnast looked during her routine. An example of a penalty? Stepping out of bounds or going over the time limit on floor or beam.

There are three sets of judges

The D-panel includes two judges who determine the difficulty score, the E-panel judges has six judges who determine the execution score, and the R-panel (or reference panel) checks and corrects any inaccuracies in the E-score, if there are any.

There are four different apparatuses in the competition

That’d be the vault, the uneven bars, the balance beam, and the floor exercise (the most fun one to watch, in my humble opinion).

Skills are grouped into difficulty levels that are worth different points

The eight most difficult skills are counted (including the dismount) and each has a different point value.

It’s not just the skills that matter—it’s how they’re combined

When certain skills are performed one after another, gymnasts can automatically earn extra fractions of points. This is why you always hear the commentators saying things like, “Great combination!” It means the gymnast is earning important bonus points for how they strung together a series of skills. The more ya know!

Gaming the points system is totally legal, BTW

Part of the reason the U.S. team scored so damn high in 2016 was because coach Márta Károlyi studied the Code of Points so damn hard. In some cases, as the New Yorker explained, a gymnast can score more points for doing harder moves imperfectly than doing easier moves perfectly. If you really want to nerd out, you can read the Code of Points here.

The smallest things matter

Back in 2016, the New Yorker noted that the reason Simone Biles didn’t get a perfect score on the Amanar (a vault skill) was because of the teeniest, tiniest flaw: She crossed her toes.

So, what if a gymnast invents a move?

Ya know, like Simone Biles did? Simple: The Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique must give it an official difficulty score. A move isn’t named after you until you become the first to successfully perform it in a competition, but the FIG is required to give it a difficulty value ahead of time. FYI: the Biles is a G-level skill, or 0.7 points.

*Some* moves are illegal

Mostly because they’re deemed too dangerous. Examples include the Korbut flip and the Thomas Salto. Simone Biles told Vogue’s 73 Questions that she stays away from moves like these because, well, “[they’re] illegal.”

Points are deducted for picking a wedgie

Seems wild, but it’s true. Nastia Liukin told People, “You’re not allowed to [pick a wedgie] or else you get deducted. So a lot of people use, like, sticky spray [called Tuf-Skin] for your butt so your leotard doesn’t move. I’ve never used it and I know most of the girls don’t really use it…but if you have a fall and your leotard goes up your butt, you don’t want to fix it in the middle of your routine. Off to the side, it’s totally fine.”

Vault scores are usually announced the fastest

Why? Because it’s the quickest event. A typical vault takes about seven seconds, according to The Gymternet, as opposed to 90 seconds for a floor routine.

Gymnasts can take a breather when they fall off an apparatus

And they won’t get penalised. Specifically, a breather of 30 seconds for uneven bars and 10 seconds for beam. They’re also allowed to talk to their coaches during this period.

Their leotards have to look nice or else they’ll lose points

The Code of Points specifies, “A correct sportive nontransparent leotard or unitard (one-piece leotard with full-length legs—hip to ankle), which must be of elegant design.” What exactly qualifies as “elegant” is not specified.

Visible underwear also leads to point deductions. That’s partly why each athlete gets multiple fittings and a custom leotard—complete with custom bras and briefs.

Speaking of leotards...

They're custom-made for each athlete and take two years to design
The announcers will talk about crystals All. The. Time. but they never talk about the cooler parts of leotards, like the fact that they are all custom-made for each gymnast and require multiple fittings before the competition. Oh, and custom looks could take up to two years to design. “There’s a lot of research and development that goes into it,” according to Kelly McKeown, chief design officer for GK Elite. “It’s something you don’t want to rush. If you want to use a new technique, if you want to experiment, then you have to wear-test it, you have to wash-test it, you have to make sure that it’s not going to fail on the competition floor.”

Leotards typically cover arms but not legs

There’s no rule against covering your legs, but McKeown told Cosmopolitan that when it does happen, people always notice and comment on it. “There’s a lot of beauty that can be put into the arm of a leotard that is part of the showmanship when you’re moving your arms around and the design is so beautiful,” she said. “But I think it would be a little too much to have the legs covered, and with all the tumbling that they do, I don’t think they would ever want that.”

There’s a strict no-jewelry rule

The official rules (via Buzzfeed) state that female gymnasts are prohibited from wearing jewelry except for small stud earrings.

There is an official Gymnasts’ Oath

It reads:

“In the name of all gymnasts, I promise that we shall take part in their World Championships (or any other official FIG event) respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of the gymnasts.”

There’s a reason you see similar elements in all the routines

Every routine requires five certain skill types to be performed. For example, on beam, every gymnast does a line of two or three flips down the beam, because one of the requirements is an acrobatic series with a minimum of two “flight” elements (e.g., flips).

The music during floor routines can’t have words

It’s why you usually hear classical music composed with pianos and orchestras. That's why the Brazilian gymnast who used (instrumental) Beyoncé songs in 2016 was particularly exciting.

If a gymnast lands a vault on her butt first…

…as opposed to on her feet and then falling on her butt? She will get a zero.

You keep hearing about the Amanar ’cause it’s one of the hardest vaults

The gymnast does a roundoff onto the springboard, back handspring onto the vault, and then flips off. (The Gymternet has a great chart of all the different kinds of vaults with their difficulty values.) In the Amanar, the flip is a layout backflip with 2.5 twists. Here is the person who invented it performing it at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney:
 

 

This article originally appeared on Cosmopolitan.com in July, 2024.


Lead image is credited to Pexels.

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