Here are the three things you need to know about the changes to the scoring system that will be used throughout regionals in 2015.
It’s the same system the Games has used for years. Since 2010, regionals have used the same points-per-place system as the Open, where you score as many points as your place in each event, and whoever accrues the fewest points wins. In the Games scoring system—in place since 2011—you refer to a scoring table. First place gets 100 points, second gets 95, and it continues to fall by 5 points through sixth place, worth 75 points. From seventh to 30th place, the drop is 2 points: seventh is worth 73 points, eight is 71, and so on. Then from 31st on, the drop is 1 point: 31st gets 26 points, 32nd gets 25, etc.
This year’s regional competitions will use this same scoring table. The full table is available here.
The impact on Games selection is mild. The table-based scoring system does change which athletes qualify for the Games, but only to a small extent. We explored this by extending the analysis used in our previous article Who Makes the Cut? There, we virtually combined the regional results from 2012, 2013 and 2014 into 2015-style regional competitions to see who would have advanced had the new rules been in effect.
What we’ve done here is to compare the Games fields in each year under the points-per-place and the table-based system. In 2014, the fields would have differed by one male and two females. In 2013, it would have been two males and one female. In 2012, the men’s field would not have changed, and the women’s field would have changed by one athlete. These are cases where fifth and sixth places at regionals—the dividing line for Games qualification—were really close.
One point for coaches and athletes: in this analysis the typical number of points for the fifth-place finisher—the last Games-qualifying spot—was 570-600 points, meaning that one needs to average about 80-85 points per event to have a shot at the Games.
Rewards multiple big-time performances. The key difference between the two scoring systems is, relative to the points-based system, the table-based system rewards athletes more for elite performances and punishes them less for poor ones. You can see this illustrated below.
You can also get a sense of the difference between the two systems by imagining a regional field with 41 athletes.
Under the points-per-place system, the person who finishes in the dead center on an event, 21st place, will accrue 21 points. The event winner is 20 points ahead of them (first place, 1 point), and the last-place finisher is 20 points behind them (41st place, 41 points).
Under the table-based system, the person who finishes 21st on an event accrues 45 points. The event winner is 55 points ahead of them (first place, 100 points), and the last-place finisher is 29 points behind them (41st place, 16 points).
Regional athletes will continue to need mostly big-time finishes to punch a ticket to Carson, California. But if they have one off event, it won’t cost quite as much as in the past. This is appropriate given that the regional competitions will be roughly twice as competitive this year—it’s going to be much more possible for an elite athlete to have a poor finish this year than in the past.
For fans, this may make for some exciting comebacks since a rocky event won’t be quite so catastrophic. Had the table-based system been in place last year, Jamie Hagiya would have qualified for the Games out of the 2014 Southern California Regional—in reality, under the points-per-place system, she took fifth place. Those two bends in the curve above would have made all the difference to Hagiya, rewarding her with more points for her five top-five finishes (including three event wins) and punishing her less during her few stumbles (19th on the handstand walk and 14th on the strict handstand push-up event).