Rhythmic Gymnastics Club Competition Software
One hall, one day, 30-80 gymnasts, two or three judges
A club meet is one day, one 13 × 13 m floor, and far more routines than gymnasts. Beginners compete a single freehand routine, the middle group takes two apparatus, and the oldest group runs the FIG individual set of hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon, so 58 gymnasts can mean 112 routines. JudgeMate scores every routine as D + A + E minus penalties, averages whatever panel you actually have on the day, and lets one judge cover all three panels. The standings land on a public results page and a hall screen while the next gymnast is still warming up.
What a club meet actually looks like, hour by hour
The unit of planning is the routine, not the gymnast. Under the FIG Code of Points 2025-2028 an individual exercise runs 1:15 to 1:30. Add the march on, the announcement, the final pose and the score entry, and a realistic slot is about 2.5 minutes. That puts one floor at 20 to 24 routines per hour, and it does not move because you registered more gymnasts.
Count your day in routines first:
- 28 gymnasts aged 8-11, one freehand routine each = 28 routines
- 18 gymnasts aged 12-13, hoop and ball = 36 routines
- 12 gymnasts aged 14 and up, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon = 48 routines
- 58 gymnasts, 112 routines, roughly 4 hours 40 minutes of floor time before you add warm-ups, breaks and the podium
A realistic one-day schedule for that entry list:
| Time | Block | Routines | On the floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08:00-08:40 | Setup: floor taped to 13 × 13 m, judges' table, music laptop, results screen | - | Crew |
| 08:40-09:00 | Judges' briefing: D cap, who covers which panel, penalty list | - | 3 judges |
| 09:00-09:30 | Warm-up, group A | - | 28 gymnasts, 8-11 |
| 09:30-10:45 | Group A, freehand | 28 | 8-11 |
| 10:45-11:05 | Floor reset, group B warm-up | - | 18 gymnasts, 12-13 |
| 11:05-12:35 | Group B, hoop then ball | 36 | 12-13 |
| 12:35-13:15 | Lunch, group A podium | - | Group A |
| 13:15-13:45 | Group C warm-up | - | 12 gymnasts, 14+ |
| 13:45-15:45 | Group C, hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon | 48 | 14+ |
| 15:45-16:05 | Score check, coach questions on D | - | Judges, organizer |
| 16:05-16:35 | Podium: all-around and apparatus | - | All groups |
| 16:35-17:00 | Pack down | - | Crew |
Four people away from the judges' table make the day run: an announcer, someone on music, a floor marshal holding the next two gymnasts ready, and one organizer on a tablet for penalties and statuses. The judges score from their own phones and never leave their seats.
The two blocks that overrun are the ones with the most gymnasts on one apparatus, because warm-up spills into the first three starts. Put your biggest group first, while the hall is still calm and everyone can count.
Scoring with a two- or three-judge panel
A routine total is D + A + E − penalties. Difficulty is open-ended: the Code counts a senior's highest 8 body difficulties plus up to 15 apparatus difficulties, a junior's highest 6 plus up to 12. Artistry and Execution both start from 10.00 and come down through deductions.
Small panels are written into the Code, not improvised around it. When Artistry or Execution is evaluated by four judges, the highest and lowest deductions are dropped and the remaining two averaged. When either is evaluated by two or three judges, every deduction is averaged (Code of Points 3.5.2-3.5.3 and 3.6.2-3.6.3). A club table of two or three judges is applying a rule the Code wrote down for exactly that case, not a house improvisation.
JudgeMate follows the same rule. With four or more scores on a panel the highest and lowest drop out and the rest are averaged; with one, two or three scores it is a plain mean. The drop is a per-category toggle, on by default, and it does nothing until a fourth judge appears.
One judge, three panels. The judge enters D, A and E for the routine herself. Each panel then holds a single value, nothing is averaged, and the total is final the moment she submits. An organizer who holds the scoring approval for that category can enter panel scores too, which is how a two-person table works: the invited judge takes Artistry and Execution, the head coach takes Difficulty.
What a judge types is the value she calculated, not the elements behind it. There is no element database and no Code of Points lookup, so nobody is hunting for the value of a split leap on a phone screen while the music plays. Set the D cap per category to what your level actually produces: 5 points for a freehand group, 12 to 15 for the FIG set. The default cap is 20.
Two worked routines from a real club day:
- Freehand, age 11: D 1.60 + A 7.40 + E 6.80 − 0.30 line penalty = 15.50
- Hoop, age 15: D 6.20 + A 7.90 + E 7.10 − 0.00 = 21.20
Totals are computed to three decimals and shown to two. The all-around is the sum of a gymnast's routine totals inside her category, and every apparatus keeps its own score column, so a hoop title costs you no extra competition. Ties in the all-around break on the higher sum of E scores, then the higher sum of A scores, then the higher sum of D scores, then a shared position. That is the ladder written into the FIG Technical Regulations 2026, Section 3, Art. 3.4.1.2.
Penalties are one field per routine, 0 to 10, and only an organizer can write them. These are the values you will actually use on a club day:
| Fault | FIG penalty | Called by |
|---|---|---|
| Each second over or under 1:15-1:30 | 0.05 | Time judge |
| Body or apparatus touching outside the floor line | 0.30 each time | Line judge |
| Gymnast or apparatus leaving the floor area | 0.30 each time | Line judge |
| Attire, jewellery, hairstyle or make-up against the rules | 0.30 | Responsible judge |
| Early or late presentation | 0.50 | Responsible judge |
| Warming up in the competition hall | 0.50 | Responsible judge |
| Preparation delay over 30 seconds | 0.50 | Time judge |
Statuses handle the rest of the day. DNS leaves the routine without a total, and a gymnast whose routines are all DNS drops out of the ranking while staying visible on the list. DSQ counts the routine as 0. DNF keeps whatever was entered, which maps onto the Code's interrupted exercise: difficulties already performed are counted, while Artistry and Execution are each penalised the full 10.00. In practice the judge enters the D she saw, 0 for A and 0 for E, and the organizer marks the routine DNF.
The full panel structure and the deduction scale behind these numbers sit in how rhythmic gymnastics scoring works. To model a total before the day, use the rhythmic gymnastics score calculator.
Age groups, apparatus rotation, and who gets to watch
One category per age group, and the apparatus rotation is a category setting. That is what lets your 9-year-olds compete one routine while your 15-year-olds compete four, in the same event, in the same hall, on the same afternoon.
Three rotations cover almost every club meet:
- Beginners: freehand only. One routine, no apparatus to drop, no equipment to buy. First-year gymnasts and anyone who has been in the gym under a season.
- Middle group: two apparatus, usually hoop and ball. They are the cheapest to equip, the easiest to replace mid-competition, and the least punishing to judge at speed.
- FIG individual set: hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon, the senior and junior programme for 2025-2028. Use it from the age your club starts feeding gymnasts into regional competition.
Rope is out of the senior individual programme this cycle, but the Code allows it in junior individual exercises at national competitions and at local international ones, so a rope class at a club meet is legitimate rather than nostalgic. You can pick any subset of freehand, rope, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon; the selection is stored in FIG order whatever order you click it in, so routine 1 to routine N always run in the same sequence everyone expects.
For age bands, the FIG Technical Regulations count rhythmic juniors as 14-15 and seniors as 16 and over, by year of birth rather than birthday. Below junior, clubs set their own bands, and two-year bands (8-9, 10-11, 12-13) keep the podiums honest instead of spreading 58 entries over fifteen categories of four, where everyone who starts goes home with a medal.
A group routine is entered as a single participant under the group name. There is no five-gymnast roster to build, and the group scores on the same D + A + E model as an individual.
Access splits three ways on the day. Judges hold the judge role in the category, score from their own phones, and each one writes only her own scores. An organizer can also hold panel-scoring approval, which is what makes a two-person table possible. Penalties and statuses stay organizer-only, so nobody at the judges' table can quietly add a 0.30.
Parents need nothing installed. The public event page opens in any browser with no app and no account, and results recalculate server-side within seconds of a score being written. Put that same page on a hall TV, or use the LED display view for a big screen behind the floor, and the crowd stops asking the scorer's table for the standings.
One limit worth knowing before you print the programme: the all-around lives inside a single category. If you want an overall club champion across age groups, you work that out yourself from the category results.
Other shapes of the same day: an open invitational with visiting clubs or an internal grading day. Format background: rhythmic gymnastics competition formats.
Setting the meet up in JudgeMate
Budget 30 to 40 minutes the week before, and ten minutes on the morning itself.
- Create the event. Name, date, hall. One event holds every age group, so parents share one link and one results page for the whole day.
- One category per age group. Pick the rhythmic gymnastics scoring mode. Name the category exactly what the announcer will say out loud, because that name shows up on the public page and the hall screen.
- Set the apparatus rotation. Use a preset (beginners, FIG individual, all apparatus) or tick your own subset. Each apparatus becomes one routine per gymnast, numbered in FIG order.
- Set the D cap and the drop toggle. The cap stops a mistyped 62.0 for 6.20 from becoming a result. Leave the drop on: it is inert with three judges and correct if a fourth walks in.
- Add the gymnasts. Type them in, or import the entry list you already keep in a spreadsheet.
- Assign the judges. Each judge gets the judge role in the categories she is covering and signs in on her own phone. If a co-organizer will enter penalties, give her the organizer role in that category as well, otherwise her writes get refused at the door.
- Do one dry run. Score a test participant on one apparatus, check that the total appears on the public page and the hall screen, then clear it. Ten minutes on the morning, and you never debug during the first warm-up.
On the day the judges' phones stay on the scoring screen for their category. Scores are written per judge, so a phone dropping off wifi for a minute costs that judge her entry, not the routine. The server is the authority on every total, and the client screens are a preview of what it will confirm.
If a co-organizer opens the scoring screen without the right role, the fields are disabled with a message explaining which role is missing. That is deliberate: a silent refusal at 10:30 in a loud hall is worse than a blocked field.
For the wider run-up (bulletin, entries, judge invitations, hall plan) see how to organize a rhythmic gymnastics competition.
Paper, spreadsheets, and what each one costs you
Every club starts on paper, and paper holds up until the third age group.
- Paper score sheets. The failure is arithmetic under time pressure. Three panel values plus a penalty per routine, four routines per gymnast, twelve gymnasts in the group: that is 180 calculations done by hand while a hall waits. The second failure is distribution, because the only copy of the standings is on the table, so every parent walks to the table.
- A spreadsheet on one laptop. One person becomes the bottleneck for the whole competition. Judges dictate scores across a table, someone types, and the tie-break is decided by whoever typed last. A shared sheet over hall wifi adds a race condition with a projector attached to it.
- A generic scoring app. Most take one score per performance. Rhythmic gymnastics needs three panel values plus a penalty per routine, then an all-around that sums routines per gymnast. Flattening that into a single number throws away exactly the breakdown coaches ask about at 16:00.
- JudgeMate. Three panels per routine, panel averaging that follows the Code's own rule for small juries, a score column per apparatus and the all-around inside the category, DNS/DSQ/DNF statuses, organizer-only penalties, and a public results page that updates within seconds of a judge submitting.
What JudgeMate does not do, stated plainly so you do not find out in the hall: there is no Excel export for any sport, and no PDF export for rhythmic gymnastics yet, so the shareable artifact is the public results link rather than a file. There is no element database, so judges calculate D themselves. The D score is one number per judge, not split into body and apparatus sub-panels the way a FIG-level D-jury works. And the all-around is per category, not across the whole event.
For a club running 30 to 80 gymnasts on a single floor with two or three judges, that trade lands well: you give up the paperwork exports and keep the arithmetic, the statuses and the live standings.
Background reading: the sport on JudgeMate, the judging mechanics, and the apparatus explained.
Set up your event
Free for organizers. No athlete cap. No commission on registrations. See rhythmic gymnastics features · Organizer guide