Judging
We are always looking for parents who would like to become judges. Volunteers participating in this way keep our sport alive and are much valued and appreciated.
Q, How do the judges score and what are they looking for?
A.
The highest level of judging is pure science. Every element of a series of moves is seen, evaluated and scored at the speed they are performed with no video reviews allowed. This level is populated with judges of long experience, very likely to be, or have been, high level coaches and many are ex-gymnasts.
Local competitions are somewhat different. The first thing to keep in mind is that there are very few qualified judges. There are several reasons for this. The primary one is that all judges are volunteers. There are no professional judges, although judges can and do claim expenses for judging at a competition.
Secondly there are few and far between judging courses available to become qualified, even at the very first level.
Put this together and when it comes to competitions it is difficult to find enough judges to fill all the seats on the judging table.
How many judges should be at a table?
A full judging table should consist of 5 execution judges, 2 difficulty judges plus a CoP (Chair of Judges Panel)
Each judge evaluates a run and scores it out of 10.0, the scores are checked that they are within 0.5 of each other, The highest is discarded, the lowest is discarded then the remaining 3 are added together to produce the score for the run out of 30. The CoP has a set of deductions which can be made for elements not evaluated within the run, e.g. incorrect attire; wearing jewellery; landing outside the landing area etc. This is deducted from the run score. Where runs have a ‘Tariff’ (this is not covered here) the tariff is added to the score to produce the final recorded and published score.
What happens at local competitions…….
The number of available judges is not enough to fill all the places so it is likely that a judging table will consist of 2 judges plus a CoP (difficulty judges are rarely required at this level). Thankfully there are usually enough experienced judges for there to be enough CoPs.
This will mean that when a run is evaluated the CoP becomes a judge as well, the highest score is discarded leaving a total score out of 20 rather than 30.
Many judges at this level do not have the experience to correctly see everything and so evaluate scientifically. Often the CoP needs to guide them as to what the score should be. This is why there is always a check to see if the scores are within 0.5 of each other.
What are judges looking for during a run?
Each move within tumbling has a technical description against which it is evaluated. In addition to this the whole run is evaluated against certain criteria.
Each run has an initial value of 10.0 against which judges deduct 0.1 or multiples of 0.1 to reach the run score.
Here are some of the general rules applied (it’s not possible to describe each deduction for each move here)
lack of form, control, height and rhythm in each element
The critical part of this statement is ‘each element’ i.e. if a tumbler has a poorly formed flick and performs 6 of them during a run the deductions add up very quickly.form = Straight legs, pointed toes, arms by ears, etc.
control = all elements are inline, arms and legs are under control etc.
height = rows of flicks and whips are all at the same level; salo (or rebound) height is appropriate for the element, etc.
rhythm = the run should be smooth, fast and the rhythm should ideally speed up slightly from beginning to end. Runs that are slow and out of rhythm can be deducted heavily.
The deductions range from 0.1 to 0.5 per element.
lack of stability after a complete a run
This has multiple types of deduction possible from a slight wiggle or step to a crashing fall.
The deductions range from 0.1 to 1.0.
For more information this link will take you to extracts from the official document describing the duties of judges at top events which local judges do their best to stick to for local events.