New Olympics Scoring: No More Perfect 10.0
If you watch the Olympics gymnastics this year, you may be confused by the new scoring system which will let athletes score 14, 17, or even higher. The new rules are "heavy on math" and employ two panels of judges: one for technical difficulty, which adds points up from a score of zero; the other for execution and technique, which starts at 10.0 and subtracts for errors. The two numbers are then combined for the final score. As one judge put it, "The system rewards difficulty. But the mistakes are also more costly." The new rules were adopted after South Korea protested a scoring at the 2004 Olympics.
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