Gone are the days of the ‘perfect 10’ in gymnastics scoring. With the ever increasing difficulty and demands on gymnasts there simply aren’t enough points to award with a maximum of ten and therefore today’s scoring system is…well slightly more complex!
In simple terms, gymnasts have two different scores, the D score (difficulty of the routine) and the E score (execution of the routine aka how neat and tidy it is!). All gymnasts begin with a 10.0 execution score which then has points removed for faults such as bent legs, arms and falls. Their difficulty score is then created separately by adding up the hardest moves in their routine and marks are also given for specific requirements.
Both of these scores are then added together to give a final score, there is no "perfect score" , hence why we see scores ranging from around 11 up to around 16 which is generally considered a world class score!