Success in rhythmic gymnastics competitionstudy of evaluation and performance variables in individual routines

Abstract

The main goal is the analysis of evaluation and performance variables in individual routines of world reference gymnasts at rhythmic gymnastics competition. In order to achieve this goal, 12165 technical elements and the answers of 162 international judges were analysed. The results indicate that most international judges have a background which enables a quality judgment. Furthermore, the Code of points prescribes evaluation criteria that may compromise the objective evaluation of the artistic faults and the difficulty elements: Mastery and Risk. The efficiency of these resources has not yet been reinforced, since we detected a disagreement between the 4 judges in 40% of the difficulty elements observed. The quality of the judgement, tends to be lower in gymnasts of medium level and the judges and coaches do not perceive the evaluation criteria of the difficulty elements identically. Through the results concerning the content analysis of the routines, we can see a common pattern in the composition of competition routines in the different gymnast levels and different apparatus routines. The technical elements: Rotations and Risk, together, represent more than 50% of the total value of compositions.