OT: Judging the judging of artistic sports

UCLA Olympian gymnast Jordan Chiles and University of Missouri gymnast Helen Hu received the first perfect scores of the 2025 women’s collegiate gymnastics season. Photo courtesy of Forbes.

DOROTHY LAKSHMANAMURTHY | STAFF REPORTER | dlakshmanamurthy@butler.edu 

Overtime, or “OT”, is an opinion column series where the Collegian takes national sports headlines or polarizing topics and gives them a Butler-centric angle.

Expressing concern for the lack of viewership in women’s collegiate gymnastics, Louisiana State University gymnast Olivia Dunne went to X on Jan. 26 to share her thoughts on the issue. Dunne’s solution to greater viewership is for judges to hand out more perfect ten scores since “too many deductions … feel negative and lose the entertainment factor that draws people in.”

Her post quickly faced backlash from many fans. People questioned if she was actually mad over her own personal status as a “perfect score-less gymnast,”  instead of a true concern for viewership. 

Agreeing with the backlash from fans, sophomore elementary education major Cameron Jones finds Dunne’s “solution” to be undermining the sport.

“I do not think getting tens is how you are going to get people to watch,” Jones said. “If you hand out tens to everyone, it is no longer competitive. Not everyone gets a participation award — it is supposed to be competitive.”

The NCAA judges have noticeably pulled back on handing out perfect ten scores this season. They have only handed out two perfect scores within the first four weeks. At this time last season, 19 perfect scores were already awarded. 

However, there seemed to be a trend toward perfect tens becoming more common; the 2022 season had no regular season competition weekend without a perfect score. The amount of perfect scores continued to increase with 71 perfect tens overall in 2022, 84 in 2023 and 87 in 2024. 

The decrease this season can be a result of the College Gymnastics Association’s (CGA) new judging evaluation system. This system is intended to push toward more integrity in scoring by not only judging the gymnasts but also the judges themselves. 

The judging evaluation is run by the Standardize Consistency in Officiating of Routine Evaluation Board (SCORE). SCORE looks over past NCAA routines and compares a judge’s score on each routine to a target score that the board creates. The judge will receive a high or low rating based on how accurate their scores are compared to the target scores. This rate will be used to rank judges and their qualifications for future NCAA meets. 

Despite this improvement, inconsistencies in judging remain constant in gymnastics and in any artistic sport, which first-year cheerleader Kaela Wilson observed with the Butler cheer team’s scores on the first day of the Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) Nationals on Jan. 17-19.

“We were scored higher by two of the judges while the third scored us lower,” Wilson said. “Then one of the other teams made it into the finals because that third judge scored them super high. So, it makes you kind of confused when getting critiques back because each judge’s perception can be very different.”

Judges’ differing perceptions and values can carry into their scoring by focusing on certain factors over others. This can be seen in an ongoing debate in artistic sports — prominently dance — on what factor is more important: technique or performance.

Junior dancer Maggie Jones saw this debate come to life at the Universal Dance Association (UDA) Nationals stage on Jan. 17-19 when she watched Division 1A’s top rival teams, Minnesota and Ohio State, compete for the jazz championship title.

“Some people thought Minnesota should have won, while others agree that Ohio State deserved it,” Maggie said. “I think that has to do a lot with the fact that a lot of people watching Minnesota felt more emotions as opposed to Ohio, which was more intricate.”

Wilson relates this debate to her team’s first-place nationals routine, expressing how some teams questioned their win.

“I think some people were still shocked that we won,” Wilson said. “Even though we did have higher crowd appeal, it definitely was not a perfect routine. So, I understand that everyone sees things differently. I even have those moments where I am like, ‘Are those judges judging correctly?’ But I have to remember that in these artistic sports, everyone is looking from different angles and perspectives. That is what makes it so complicated.”

However, judges’ perceptions hold more depth than solely what is judged on the score sheet, bringing along the issue of unnecessary — yet unavoidable — biases. 

As a cheer coach for Flip Zone Gymnastics, Jones has had conversations with parents and her gymnasts over bias and inconsistent judging. 

Unfortunately, she finds a part of the problem rooted in appearance biases. 

“One of the best gymnasts [I coach] cannot squeeze certain aspects of her body, or it does not seem to the judges that she is due to her body type,” Jones said. “The judges think that she’s not hitting those points when she actually is.”

Additionally, a team’s reputation or a judge’s connection to a team can also play a role in a judge’s scoring. The UCA, UDA and CGA judging criteria state that a judge “must be five years out from any program” they were a part of.

When looking at this criteria, first-year cheerleader Marie Ramsey thinks the policy should be stricter.

“It should be that they can never judge a team they have been a part of,” Ramsey said. “You could have had a really good or really bad experience with that program, and that can affect how you perceive them when judging.”

One solution to eliminate judges’ biases is by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI), which has already been used in some gymnastics competitions like the 2024 Paris Olympics. The technology is used more as a tool to give judges a score recommendation, rather than completely replacing a judge’s job — at least for now.  

However, Jones believes that AI should not be used and foresees judging biases to remain an unavoidable issue.

“I really do not like the idea of AI,” Jones said. “The solution should just be to eliminate bias, but that is a problem that goes beyond just judging sports. That is just life.”

Even though there is not an overall solution to eliminating all judging issues — only steps toward preventing foreseeable inconsistencies  — Dunne’s idea to hand out more perfect scores in gymnastics will only worsen the judging controversy in artistic sports.

Authors

Related posts

Top