Decoding Difficulty Score
In today’s installment of the decoding series, we’re breaking down the “open” portion of the open code: the difficulty score. This is where the true deviation from the “Perfect 10” comes into play, and allows gymnasts to work the code to their advantage.
For vault, the difficulty score is fixed. The specific vault you compete determines what score you receive. There is virtually no way to build on that starting difficulty score.
Things are a bit different for uneven bars, balance beam, and floor. For these events, the difficulty score of the routine is broken down into different parts that get added together.
What Makes Up a Difficulty Score?
There are several different ways for gymnasts to build up their difficulty score, and each comes with their own set of rules around them. We’ll only be covering them in broad strokes today, but if you’re still curious about any of these, don’t fret. We’ll be diving deeper into each component in the upcoming weeks.
Counting Skills
As the name implies, these are the gymnastics skills that will be counted towards the difficulty score. As with the execution score, these are also measured in tenths. The more difficult the skills, the more tenths get added to their final score.
To communicate a skill’s difficulty rating, they are assigned the letter whose placement in the alphabet corresponds with the amount of tenths that skill is worth. For example, a skill worth one tenth (0.1) is given an A rating, while a skill worth five tenths (0.5) is rated E.
There are limitations to this, though. Technically, gymnasts can do as many skills as they want within a routine, as long as they’re not excessively holding up the competition. But only the highest eight skills count towards the difficulty score.
Composition Requirements
Another way for gymnasts to build difficulty is rooted in how their routines are constructed. Each event has four different requirements for the composition of a routine. Most of these requirements can be fulfilled with fairly simple skills, serving the purpose of making sure even an elite gymnast has maintained their fundamentals.
Each composition requirement is worth half a point (0.5), earning the gymnast a baseline of two full points on their difficulty score for meeting them. The skills used to meet these requirements do not have to be one of the eight counting skills. This means the gymnast can choose to quickly get them out of the way before focusing on their counting skills, or kill two birds with one stone by using their counting skills to meet these requirements.
Connections, Series, and Dismount Bonuses
Connection bonuses are extra points earned when skills are done back-to-back, and are added to the difficulty score in batches of either one (0.1) or two (0.2) tenths per connection. While none of the skills involved have to be counting skills, the higher the difficulty of the skills you connect, the higher the value of the connection. Whether this bonus is granted, however, is based on the speed of the connection. If the judges determine there was too much of a pause between skills, no connection bonus is given.
On beam, there is an extra way to get points by connecting skills. If three or more skills rated a minimum of B(0.2), B (0.2), and C (0.3) are done in quick succession, the gymnast receives a series bonus. The order of the skills do not matter, but like with connections, whether the series is credited is entirely based on how quickly you can follow up one skill with another.
On all three events, there’s one more way for a gymnast to add to their difficulty score right at the end of their routine: the dismount bonus. If the dismount, or final skill, performed in a routine is rated a D or higher, they get an extra two tenths (0.2) added to their difficulty score. The only exception to this is if the gymnast falls while landing the skill.
How High Can You Go?
Unlike the execution score, which is capped at a 10, the difficulty score is wholly dependent on what the gymnast is capable of. As long as the skill exists in the code and the connections are credited, the sky’s the limit.
Much of what goes into constructing a gymnastics routine involves the gymnast and their coach figuring out how high they can get their difficulty before they reach the point where they’d lose more points in execution than they’d be gaining. It’s a precarious tightrope to walk, and whether they choose to play it safe or go for broke is a true gamble.
Join us next time as we break down counting skills in our never ending journey to decode the code of points!