Floor (gymnastics) - Scoring and Rules

Scoring and Rules

Floor exercise routines last up to 90 seconds. The routine is choreographed in advance, and is composed of acrobatic and dance elements. This event, above all others, allows the gymnast to express his or her personality through his or her dance and musical style. The moves that are choreographed in the routine must be precise, in sync with the music and entertaining.

At the international elite level of competition, the composition of the routine is decided by the gymnast and his or her coaches. Many gymnasiums and national federations hire special choreographers to design routines for their gymnasts. Well known gymnastics choreographers include Lisa Luke (USA), Adriana Pop (Romania, France, China), Nancy Roche (USA) and Geza Pozar (Romania, USA). Others opt to choreograph their FX routines in-house. Some gymnasts adopt a new FX every year; others keep the same routine for several competitive seasons. It is not uncommon for coaches to modify a routine's composition between meets, especially if it is used for an extended length of time. It is uncommon for gymnasts to use more than one different FX routine in the same season but it is not entirely unheard of: at the 1996 Olympics, for instance, Russian Dina Kotchetkova's routine in the FX event finals had completely different music, choreography and composition than that of her all-around exercise.

The music used for the routine is also the choice of the gymnast and his or her coaches. It may be of any known musical style and played with any instrument(s), however, it may not include spoken words, sung lyrics or vocalization of any kind. It is the responsibility of the coach to bring the music to every competition on CD.