Kathy Johnson explains what judges look for {1989-1992 CoP}

[@Altoclarinets]

This is reductive for the benefit of a mostly uninitiated audience. "Form, amplitude, and difficulty" weren't really the 3 equal tentpoles of a gymnast's score the way they're made out to be here, they were just (as they still are now) the easiest things for a new spectator to understand. The real breakdown went more like: Base score: On all events except vault, a gymnast was expected to show a set of a certain number of elements with a certain level of difficulty to earn the base start score - 9.2 in this quad if memory serves. The exact nature of this set varied based on the phase of competition - TO expected mostly As and Bs, but AA required more Cs with EF having the highest expectations. (This is the real reason most gymnasts at this time had an "easy routine" and a "hard routine" - not because they were trying to reserve anything for the second day but because the requirements were literally different.) Missing an A from this set would cost .1, missing a B would cost .3, and missing a C would cost .5. Bonus: Difficult skills (Ds) and connections (prescribed in much the same way CV currently is) could earn extra tenths in bonus to get the gymnast from the 9.2 base score to the 10.0 SV she obviously would want to start from. An originality bonus was also available for gymnasts who were the only gymnast at a competition or in the entire world performing a certain skill. This is why there was so much innovation at this time - everyone was looking for something that could be uniquely theirs! Execution: This was a large umbrella, encompassing form, amplitude, and technique as well as other factors such as artistry and variety of skill choice. The deductions were less specific and in smaller increments than the current Code, and the maximum amount of execution deductions allowable was 4.0. (This is having repercussions to this very day when so many judges STILL will go to great lengths to avoid using the full 10 points of execution available to them to properly separate routines at elite meets - there is still a mindset that you can't really go below 6 unless the routine was an unmitigated disaster, but now it's also been fenced in from the other side as basically nothing except vault can get an E over 8.8 anymore.) Judges also tended to be more lenient on execution for very difficult routines, to reward gymnasts who went above and beyond the basic requirements to start from a 10. Whether this was a net positive for the sport is a debate that carries on til now. Neutral deduction - same as now, includes considerations like out of bounds and overtime - but .1 was a much larger deduction in an era where it was common for .025 to separate first and second place. (You may notice something major missing: the SR of the last two quads of the 10.0, which evolved into the CR of today's D scores. Gymnasts were expected to show a variety in their skill choice, and there was a subjective deduction available when they didn't, but the expectations of minimum competency that the CR are now used to demonstrate were handled by compulsories back then.) My point is that the description you have included with this video is inaccurate.