Gymnastics Scoring: The Perfect 10 Was Abolished Because Difficulty Has No Ceiling

Two numbers, built in opposite directions

A gymnastics score is D + E − neutral deductions.

The trampoline discipline measures half its score electronically — see trampoline scoring.

One judged sport went the other way entirely — see how snowboarding is judged.

The D score counts difficulty. It starts at zero and accumulates: the eight highest-valued elements including the dismount, plus connection value for linking elements and composition requirements for covering the required element groups.

The E score counts execution. It starts at 10.0 and only ever falls.

One number is built up from nothing. The other is worn down from perfection. Their sum is the score.

Why the perfect 10 had to go

The old system capped a routine at 10, and the problem was not nostalgia — it was resolution.

Once two gymnasts both perform cleanly, a capped score has nothing left to say. A routine of extraordinary difficulty and a routine of moderate difficulty, both executed flawlessly, score the same 10.

That is only tolerable while difficulty is roughly comparable across the field. As gymnasts got better, it stopped being tolerable — the scoring system could no longer tell the best routines apart.

Uncapping difficulty solved it. The D score has no upper limit, so a harder routine is always worth more, and the ceiling that caused the problem simply does not exist.

The cost is legibility, and it is a real cost. A 9.8 meant something to anyone. A 14.766 means nothing without knowing what was attempted.

That is the same trade figure skating made when it abolished the 6.0 — auditability and resolution bought at the price of a number the public understood.

Eight elements, and the dismount counts

The D score does not add up everything a gymnast does. It counts the eight highest-valued elements, with the dismount included among them.

Capping the count at eight prevents routines becoming endless lists of skills. There is no reward for a ninth element, so a gymnast has no reason to add one — which keeps routines to a watchable length without a time limit.

Including the dismount is a deliberate placement. A gymnast cannot treat the landing as an afterthought, because it is competing for one of the eight scoring slots.

Connection value rewards not stopping

Beyond the elements themselves, connection value pays for linking skills directly together.

The reason is that a pause is easier. Performing two difficult elements consecutively, without a settling step between them, is significantly harder than performing them separately — and without a bonus, a gymnast would always separate them.

So CV exists to make the harder version of the same routine worth choosing. It is the same function as karate paying three for a head kick and one for a punch: pay for the difficult option or nobody will attempt it.

Deductions are banded, not continuous

Execution falls in fixed steps: 0.1 small, 0.3 medium, 0.5 large, 1.0 for a fall.

Bands rather than a continuous scale make judging comparable between judges. Two officials asked to grade a wobble from 0 to 1 would disagree constantly; asked to classify it as small, medium or large, they agree far more often.

The 1.0 fall is worth noting for what it is not — it is less than the gap between many difficulty values. A gymnast attempting a much harder routine can fall and still beat a clean easier one.

That is the system working as designed. It has decided that attempting more is worth more than completing less, and it prices the risk explicitly.

More rulebook coverage is in rules and techniques, and more on what the FIG does and does not regulate in the tallest gymnasts question.