Womens' Collegiate Gymnastics: a primer...

With the popularity of the Olympics, most fans are familiar with the basic scheme of women’s gymnastics. The gymnasts perform on four apparatuses: the vault, the uneven parallel bars (also called the asymmetrical bars), the balance beam, and the floor exercise. Judges score their performances and the gymnast, or the gymnastics team, with the highest score is the winner.

Currently (and this format has changed several times over the last few Olympiads), each country’s women’s gymnastics Olympic or World team consists of six gymnasts. For ‘Team Finals’ three of each team’s six gymnasts compete on each apparatus, their twelve scores all count, and - added together - these twelve scores make up the team’s final score. In addition, at the Olympic and World levels, ‘Elite’ or ‘open-ended’ scoring is used for each routine, resulting in (to us old-timers) the still odd-looking, higher-than-10.0 scores.

NCAA women’s gymnastics, on the other hand, still uses the more familiar ‘10.0’ or ‘Junior Olympic’ system. That is, the highest score a gymnast may receive for her routine is a 10.0. In fact, since the Junior Olympic scoring requirements are somewhat less rigorous than the requirements found at the elite level, and further since the gymnasts are older, more mature, and more experienced, it is not unusual at all to see ‘perfect 10.0s’ scored in college competition.

Another difference is that, in college competition, six gymnasts compete on each apparatus for each team, with only the highest five scores being counted. Therefore, the highest theoretical team score would be 200.0 (10.0 times five routines times four apparatuses).

In actual practice, team scores exceeding 194.00 are relatively commonplace in ‘Division I’ (the highest level of college gymnastics), with the more accomplished teams routinely exceeding 196.00, occasionally even 198.00. (The University of Georgia won the 2007 NCAA Division I Women’s Gymnastics Championship with a team score of 197.850 – a remarkable scoring average of nearly 9.90 per routine.)

Each NCAA Division I woman’s gymnastics team is allowed to award up to 12 gymnastics scholarships, on a head count basis (that is, each gymnast who is awarded any athletic scholarship money counts as one full scholarship – unlike, say, NCAA baseball, which may divide scholarships in half or in quarters, etc.). Be that as it may, teams are allowed to have more than 12 gymnasts and it is not usual for a team to have several ‘walk-on’ or ‘non-athletic-scholarship’ gymnasts on the roster. However, in order to level the playing field, so to speak, the NCAA and various conferences will at times impose limits on how many gymnasts each team may include on ‘travel squads’ or ‘completion squads’.

As previously mentioned, teams may compete up to six gymnasts on each apparatus, with five scores counting. However, it doesn’t have to be the same six on each apparatus. In fact, that is rarely the case. A certain degree of specialization takes place within most teams. There are no rules limiting how few routines a gymnast may perform, only that she may perform only once on each apparatus. It is not unusual at all for a gymnast to perform on only one apparatus - commonly only the beam or only on the bars, more rarely just on vault or floor exercise.

(Perhaps not surprisingly, the reverse is also not unusual, that is, it is not unusual for a gymnast to have a ‘weak’ event or events – again, more commonly the beam and/or the bars – which they almost never compete on, while nearly always competing on the other two or three events. The bottom line is, gym coaches try to have their best six routines competing on each apparatus, whether they end up using six 'all-arounders’ or some combination involving every gymnast available for competition.)

Two main forms of team competition are undertaken in NCAA gymnastics, the ‘dual meet’ format and the ‘tournament’ format. Regular season meets are usually, but not always, dual meets, while championship competitions are always tournaments.

As the name implies, dual meets involve competitions between two teams. The home team competes in what is called ‘Olympic order’, that is, vault first, then uneven bars, beam, and finally, floor exercise. The visiting team competes in the following order: uneven bars, vault, floor exercise, and balance beam (the reason for this order will become obvious in a moment).

Two judges score the routines on each apparatus, with their scores for each gymnast being averaged to make up the gymnast’s score for her routine (for example, Judge A gives Gymnast 1 a 9.85 for her routine, while Judge B gives her a 9.90, averaging out to a 9.875 score). Since only two apparatuses are competed at any given time during a dual meet, a total of only four scoring judges are needed - with a fifth, non-scoring judge employed as a ‘meet referee’ to adjudicate any disputes or unusual circumstances.

When the home team is on their first ‘rotation’, that is, the vault, the visiting team is on the uneven bars. Usually (but not always), only one gymnast from one of the teams is performing at a given time. This makes it easier for the audience to keep up with the competition. When both teams have had six gymnasts perform, the first rotation eands and the teams swap events. The home team heads to the uneven bars for rotation two, while the visiting team moves to the vault. The judges remain at their 'rotation one' apparatuses in order to make the judging as uniform as possible for the two teams (because the same two judges score both teams on the same apparatus).

After rotation two, the home team heads to the balance beam and the visitors go to floor. The judges at this point have to move to the beam and the floor. Interestingly, to further the cause of impartiality, the judging teams ‘split up’, with one vault and one bars judge going to beam and one vault and one bars judge going to floor. Naturally, the judges then remain in their new spots for the final rotation, rotation four, while the home team goes to the floor exercise and the visitors go to the balance beam.

A tournament is, in some ways, a much simpler format. The involved teams usually compete simultaneously (again, six routines with five counting), with as many as four teams (one for each apparatus) competing at once. The gymnasts on each team perform one after another, pausing only long enough to await the judge's signal for them to start. If more that four teams are involved, then a system of ‘bye rotations’ is employed, that is , non-competing, ‘standing by’ rotations are inserted into the tournament. The number of bye rotations is determined by the number of teams in the tournament in excess of four. In theory, a tournament could involve any number of teams merely by adding additional bye rotations. In practice, due to time constraints and the need to keep the athletes adequately warmed up and focused for competition, tournaments involving more than six or seven teams are rare.

The judges for a tournament usually remain at one apparatus for the entire competition. Generally speaking, the more ‘important’ the competition, the more judges are involved per apparatus. For regular season meets, two judges are used per apparatus and their scores are averaged as described above. For championship competitions, four, or even six, judges are employed for each apparatus, with the high and low scores thrown out and the remaining scores averaged.

For championship tournaments, the order of competition for each team is determined by a blind draw. Drawing Olympic order is generally considered to be an advantage. As a matter of fact, for regular season tournaments, the home team often gets ‘Olympic order’ as a ‘home field advantage', leaving the visiting teams to draw for their order of competition. By the way, in tournaments, since the judges stay at their respective apparatuses throughout the competition, the ‘swapping around’ of ‘Olympic order described above is not done. Instead, if the blind draw dictates that a team start on, say, balance beam, their next competitive rotation will be on floor exercise, followed by vault, then bars (that is, wherever they start, a team continues on in ‘Olympic order’, starting over with vault after floor, if necessary, to 'complete the loop').


The dual meet format can make for some remarkable drama, with the lead changing from team to team with every routine. Tournaments, can bring their own level of excitement, as well, depending on the magnitude of the meet. Some fierce rivalries have developed over the years, especially between teams from the same state or conference. Although there are definite rules of etiquette to be followed - it’s considered yo be ‘foul play’, even dangerous, to try to distract a gymnast on the balance beam or uneven bars - college gym meets are far from the bland, polite competitions usually seen in ‘elite’ venues, such as the US National Championship or even the World Championship.