How Are the 2026 Commonwealth Games Scored?

The Glasgow 2026 programme has 10 sports: athletics, swimming, artistic gymnastics, boxing, judo, weightlifting, bowls, track cycling, netball and 3x3 basketball. Only two of them hand the result to a panel of judges scoring on a scale — artistic gymnastics and boxing.

A second group is decided by referees applying fixed criteria rather than a 0–10 scale. In judo, referees award scores for the quality of a throw or a hold; in weightlifting, three referees simply rule each lift good or failed. The outcome is objective in principle, but a human official makes the call in real time.

Everything else is settled by counting, timing or measuring. Bowls counts bowls nearer the jack, 3x3 basketball and netball count baskets and goals, and athletics, swimming and track cycling are decided by the clock and the tape. No judge marks a performance out of ten.

This split — measure what you can, judge what you must — is the backbone of modern officiating, and it is the same logic behind how technology is entering judged sports. The rest of this guide takes the five sports where the scoring is least obvious to a casual viewer and shows exactly how a result is reached.

An artistic gymnastics score is the sum of two independent marks: the Difficulty score (D) and the Execution score (E). There is no single '10' anymore — the perfect-10 era ended in 2006. A strong routine on an apparatus typically finishes in the 13 to 15 range.

The D-score is open-ended. A dedicated panel adds up the difficulty values of the counted elements, plus credit for connections and for meeting the routine's composition requirements. A harder routine has a higher ceiling, which is why gymnasts keep upgrading their hardest skills.

The E-score starts at a perfect 10.0 and a separate execution panel deducts for every flaw — bent knees, steps on landing, form breaks — in increments of 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 or 1.0. The highest and lowest execution marks are dropped and the rest are averaged, so a single harsh or generous judge cannot swing the result.

The final apparatus score is D + E minus any neutral deductions (for stepping out of bounds or going over time). Under the FIG Code of Points 2025–2028, senior men's floor now counts 8 elements rather than 10, one of several tweaks to reward quality over quantity. For the full mechanics, see how artistic gymnastics is scored and the artistic gymnastics hub.

Commonwealth Games boxing uses the 10-point must system — the same framework as professional boxing. In every round, the judge must award 10 points to the boxer who won it and fewer to the other, normally 9. There is no draw within a round: one boxer takes 10, the other 9 or lower.

A clearly dominant round, or one that includes a knockdown, is scored 10-8. A round with two knockdowns or a near-stoppage can go 10-7. A genuinely even round may be scored 10-10, but judges are encouraged to find a winner.

The key difference from the professional game is the panel. Amateur bouts are scored by five judges, not three. For each round, the electronic scoring system randomly selects three of the five judges' cards to count toward the result — a design meant to blunt the influence of any single outlier. At the end, the three counted cards are added up and the winner is declared by unanimous, split or majority decision.

Because each judge marks independently and only three cards count per round, a boxer can win more rounds on paper yet lose the bout if the wrong cards fall the other way — the recurring source of amateur-boxing controversy. Boxing is judged on quality and quantity of scoring blows, dominance, technique and infringements, not on aggression alone.

Judo has one score that ends the contest instantly — ippon — and lesser scores that build toward it. An ippon is awarded for throwing an opponent largely on their back with control, for a 20-second hold-down (osaekomi), or for a submission from an armlock or strangle. Score ippon and the contest is over.

Below it sits waza-ari, a half-score for a throw that lacks one of ippon's qualities or a hold of 10 to under 20 seconds. Two waza-ari equal an ippon and win the contest. A single waza-ari that is never matched still decides most bouts that go the distance.

New for this Olympic cycle, the yuko score has returned. The IJF reinstated yuko for the 2025–2028 rules cycle, having removed it in 2017. Yuko sits below waza-ari — awarded for smaller throws (landing on the side or the buttocks) and, in groundwork, for a hold of at least 5 seconds — and it does not accumulate into a waza-ari. It only counts if the scores above it are level.

Penalties (shido) matter too: a third shido means hansoku-make and loss of the contest. If scores are tied when time expires, the bout goes to golden score — sudden death, first score or third penalty wins. Full detail is in how judo is scored and the judo hub.

Weightlifting looks objective — heaviest bar wins — but a panel of referees decides whether each lift counts at all. Every athlete contests two lifts: the snatch, then the clean & jerk. They get three attempts at each, and only the best successful attempt in each lift counts.

An athlete's result is a single total: the best snatch plus the best clean & jerk. Miss all three snatches and you record no total and cannot place, however heavy your clean & jerk. This is why openers are chosen conservatively.

Each attempt is ruled on by three referees, who press a button for a good lift (white) or no lift (red). The majority decides — two whites and the lift stands, two reds and it does not. Common no-lift causes are a press-out, an unfinished lockout, or the bar not being controlled at the finish.

One rule has changed and often surprises viewers: the bodyweight tiebreaker is gone. The IWF's Executive Board removed it, so if two athletes finish on the same total, the one who reached that total first in the competition is ranked ahead — not the lighter athlete. That rewards lifting a weight earlier rather than saving it. See how weightlifting is judged for the full referee protocol.

Bowls is scored one end at a time. Both sides roll their bowls (woods) toward the small target ball, the jack. When every bowl has been played, whoever has a bowl nearest the jack scores — and scores one shot for each of their bowls that is closer than the opponent's nearest bowl.

That means a single end can yield one shot or several. If a player has the two closest bowls, they score two shots; if they have four closer than any opponent's, they score four. Only one side scores on any end. Play then moves to the next end, and the totals accumulate until the game's set number of ends is complete.

Glasgow 2026 makes history for the discipline: for the first time at a Commonwealth Games, bowls is played indoors, at a reduced programme in a controlled arena rather than on an outdoor green. Indoor surfaces are faster and more predictable than weather-exposed grass, which rewards precise weight (how hard a bowl is delivered) and line (the curved path a biased bowl follows).

The sport is governed by the World Bowls Laws of the Sport (Crystal Mark), and disputes over which bowl is nearer are settled by measuring. Unlike gymnastics or boxing, no one marks the performance — the result is simply a count of who is closer, confirmed end by end.

Here is how one judge's card fills up across a three-round Commonwealth Games bout between Boxer A and Boxer B.

Round 1 — close but A edges it. A lands the cleaner shots. The judge scores it 10-9 to A.

Round 2 — B responds. B takes control and outlands A without a knockdown. The judge scores it 10-9 to B.

Round 3 — A drops B. A is on top and scores a knockdown, which forces a wider margin. The judge scores it 10-8 to A.

This judge's card: A = 10 + 9 + 10 = 29; B = 9 + 10 + 8 = 27. So this judge has it 29-27 to A.

Step 5 — the bout result. Remember that five judges score, and the system counts only three cards per round. Each round's three counted cards are tallied, and the boxer ahead on at least two of the three final cards wins. If all three favour A it is unanimous; two-to-one is a split decision. Because different rounds may draw different judges, the maths can diverge from a simple 'who won more rounds' — which is exactly why close amateur bouts are so often argued over.