47th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships
MONTREAL (CAN)
October 2 - 8, 2017

Competition format

Competition format – 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships

Female gymnasts perform on four different apparatus -- Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise -- during the course of a competition. Male gymnasts perform on six -- Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Still Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars and Horizontal Bar. Each apparatus tests different physical characteristics, and in their routines, gymnasts are expected to show full mastery of what they do -- even to the point of making very hard routines seem effortless!

TYPES OF COMPETITION

At the 2017 World Championships, gymnasts will compete in three types of competition:

  1. All-around and apparatus finals qualification. Scores from this preliminary round of competition are totalled. The 24 gymnasts with the highest overall score advance to the All-around final, while the top eight gymnasts on each individual apparatus advance to apparatus finals.
  2. All-around finals. Each of the 24 gymnasts in this final performs on all four apparatus. Highest overall score wins.
  3. Apparatus finals. Each of the 8 gymnasts in each event final performs his or her routine. Highest score wins.

THE TWO PER COUNTRY RULE

A maximum of two gymnasts per country can compete in the All-around and apparatus finals. Scores do not carry over from the qualification round -- each gymnast starts with a clean slate in the finals.

HOW SCORING WORKS

Though just one score flashes on the television screen, Artistic gymnasts actually receive two scores for every exercise, which are added together to give the total score of the exercise.

Routines in Men’s and Women's Gymnastics are broken down into two basic components, scored by two different and independent panels of judges. One panel evaluates the Difficulty of the exercise, while another assesses for Execution of the exercise, which includes artistry.

Ergo, two scores -- a Difficulty score and an Execution score -- are generated for every exercise. The final score is the sum of these two parts, minus any neutral deductions for errors like going out of bounds or going overtime.

BREAKING DOWN THE DIFFICULTY SCORE

The difficulty score in Men’s and Women’s Gymnastics is a compilation of three things:

  1. The sum of the difficulty of elements performed in the exercise
  2. Points acquired for connecting difficult elements
  3. Up to 2.0 points for women for fulfilling the four compositional requirements (2.5 points for men, who have five compositional requirements)

The highest difficulty scores in Women's Gymnastics tend to be in the neighbourhood of 7.0 points. The highest in Men’s Gymnastics are around 7.5 points.