[ad_1]
Simone Biles nailed her beam routine in Tuesday’s final, earning a three-tenth higher execution point than she did in the knockout round when she stumbled backwards as she dismounted. His overall score, however, was slightly lower, at 14.0.
This is because it changes only one skill: dismounting.
In gymnastics, each skill is assigned a letter value that represents its difficulty. Skills rated A are the easiest, while the harder skills are graded using the letters of the alphabet in order: B, C, D, and so on (and yes, these are the opposite of the letter grades you want to earn in high school).
During the qualifying round, Biles dismounted with a fully twisted double back rated G. In the final, the E-rated couple dismounted with a spear, making the two-letter value easier.
Each successive letter is worth an extra tenth point: an A skill is worth 0.1, a B skill is worth 0.2, and so on. In absolute difficulty, this means that it costs Biles only two-tenths of the cost of easier disassembly. However, changing a move can snowball, as a routine’s overall difficulty is based on both individual skills and bonuses for linking multiple skills.
The Points Rules, which govern scoring in gymnastics, give a two-tenth bonus for tying a B skill to an F (or higher) landing. Biles normally gets this bonus because he fires two backhand arcs, each rated B, to a G-rated full-twist double-back landing. However, he lost the bonus by making an E-rank landing.
This meant that his difficulty score was down four-tenths of a point compared to the routine he used in the knockout round: 6.1 instead of 6.5. This outweighed his improved execution.
Still, balance beam finals are pretty unpredictable. Several other gymnasts made mistakes, and Biles, with his less difficult but better executed routine, won the bronze medal even after finishing sixth in the knockout round.
[ad_2]
Source link