Scoring Olympic Diving

[PeeQueue]

I was watching the diving competitions on TV the other day, and I realized that the scoring is very weird. From what I can figure, this is how it works:

7 judges score the dive
they drop the lowest score and the highest score
they get the average of the remaining five scores
they multiply that average by the difficulty rating
they then multiply that number by 3

First off, is this correct? Secondly, why do they multiply the score by 3? The best guess I could come up with is because they are trying to come up with a scoring system where 100 is a really good score. Under this system, if the dive difficulty were 3.33 and the diver got all 10’s, their final score would come out at just about 100.

Anyone know the reasoning behind this?

PeeQueue

[sdimbert]

From the horse’s website:
(I have formatted some and underlined the section that answers your question specifically.)

Scoring
Judges award scores on a scale of 0 to 10 in half or whole points according to the following chart:

Completely Failed          0 points
Unsatisfactory    0.5 to 2.0 points
Deficient         2.5 to 4.5 points
Satisfactory      5.0 to 6.0 points
Good              6.5 to 8.0 points
Very good         8.5 to 10  points

The aspects of the dives considered by the judges are the run-up, the take-off, the flight technique and grace, and entry into the water. Each dive is to be considered without regard to the difficulty figure.

The divers’ starting position must be fully erect, with arms straight forward, to the sides or over the head. The approach to the end of the board must be smooth, straight, and leading into the hurdle, which is the springing action on the board gaining upward propulsion.

The take-off must clear the board by an ample safety margin.

Execution of the dive’s components from any of the straight, tuck, pike or free positions must be performed crisply, with flair and control, and held long enough in flight to clearly identify them.

Entry shall in all cases be vertical, or nearly so, with body straight, feet together and toes pointed. In a head-first entry, arms are extended overhead with hands together; in a feet-first entry, the arms are held tightly against the sides for streamlining. The less splash the better.

After each dive, the referee gives a signal and each judge, without consulting with the others, indicates his or her mark for the dive. The highest and the lowest of the seven scores are discarded, and the total of the remaining marks is multiplied by the degree of difficulty of the dive. That figure is multiplied by 0.6 in order to determine the final score. This weighing factor is used so scores from a competition with three judges can be compared with a competition with five judges.

Example: A diver in the springboard competition performs a forward dive with a half twist in the straight position, degree of difficulty 2.0, and receives the following scores: 8, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 6.5. The high (8) and the low (6.5) are canceled, and the total of remaining marks (35) is multiplied by the degree of difficulty (2.0). That figure (70) is multiplied by 0.6 to yield 42 points, the score of the dive.

Hope this helps!

[PeeQueue]

Thanks sdimbert! It just so happened that with the number of judges my method will work out to the exact same score.

So the reason for the multiplier is that the number of judges is usually less.

PeeQueue

[LazarusLong42]

Nope; it’s just a different multiplier, as theirs factors in the average automatically. Instead of taking the average, they multiply by 0.6 = 3 / 5.

I think they pretty much always have seven judges, at least at this level.

LL

[PeeQueue]

Then why would the nbcolympics page say that was the reason?

PeeQueue

[sdimbert]

*Originally posted by PeeQueue *
**Then why would the nbcolympics page say that was the reason?
**

2 possibilities:

1. The folks at nbcolympics know more than LL42 (unthinkable!).
2. The rules are written for all levels of competition, including those non-Olympic levels where fewer than 7 judges preside.

I think it’s pretty obvious which is the correct choice.

[USCDiver]

This is right up my alley…
The minimum number of judges for a competition is supposed to be 3, in which case all scores are kept. For many competions there are only 5 judges. The main reason for this is that at many meets there aren’t more than 5 coaches,(coaches always judge except at the olympics). In these meets, the highest and lowest score is dropped to accomodate the 3 judge convention. At larger more important meets, like US Nationals and Olympics, 7 judges are used. This was difficult a few years ago because meets were scored by hand and multiplying by 3/5 took too long. The typical solution was to drop the 2 highest and 2 lowest scores to get the requisite 3 scores. But now, with computers doing the work, multiplying by 3/5 helps eliminate any politiking going on between opposing judges. The standard 3 score total in all competitions is then multiplied by the DD to get the dive total. The main purpose for all this mess is so that scores are consistent from meet to meet.
In most college meets, there are only 2 teams competing against each other, so there are only 2 judges. This is overcome by multiplying the 2 score total by 3/2. As you can imagine, there is much cheating between coach/judges. As my college coach used to say, he’d decide the score he thought the dive was worth and then he’d decide what he thought the other judge would give, and he’d compensate to make the average appropriate.