Rhythmic Gymnastics Invitational
Visiting clubs, an independent panel, all-around and apparatus rankings
An invitational puts gymnasts from several clubs, often from more than one country, on the same carpet for a day or a weekend. Every routine carries the three numbers a FIG protocol carries: difficulty (D), artistry (A) out of 10 and execution (E) out of 10, minus the line, time and attire penalties that only the organizer enters. JudgeMate averages each panel, and with four or more scores on a panel the highest and the lowest are dropped before the rest are averaged. Judges work on their own phones or tablets and each writes only their own score; the server recalculates the routine total, the all-around and the ranking on each apparatus within seconds, and the same numbers land on the public event page and on the display in the hall.
What changes when other clubs travel to you
A club meet is your gymnasts, your hall, your paperwork. An invitational changes one thing that touches every other decision: the people reading the score sheet do not work for you.
Entries. Visiting clubs plan travel around your deadline. Categories, the apparatus in each category and the closing date have to be fixed before anyone books a bus.
Running order. A visiting coach builds the warm-up backwards from the start list. Publish the order once, with the apparatus rotation next to it.
The panel. One judge covering difficulty, artistry and execution is ordinary at a club meet and awkward at an invitational, where three clubs watch the same routine and compare notes afterwards.
It helps to say out loud where your day sits between a club afternoon and a championship:
| Aspect | Club meet | Invitational | National championship |
|---|---|---|---|
| Panel size | one judge can cover all three panels | at least one judge per panel, drawn from more than one club | full federation panel; FIG world level is a D jury of 4 in two subgroups, an A jury of 4, an E jury of 4, plus 2 line judges and a time judge |
| Format | one or two apparatus, ranked as performed | two to four apparatus, an all-around plus a ranking on each apparatus | qualification, an all-around final for the 18 best (max 2 per federation), apparatus finals for the 8 best |
| Results needs | a screen in the gym is enough | a public link for families abroad and a display in the hall | official protocols, an inquiry desk, reporting to the federation |
| Inquiries | a word with the head judge | a named official and a written note | FIG procedure: D score only, two minutes on the electronic system |
Most invitationals live in the middle column: three to six judges, two to four apparatus, and a results link that has to work for a grandmother watching from another time zone.
Entries from several clubs, one deadline
Build the event once, then one category per age band and level: Junior hoop and ball, Senior all-around, a group category. Each category carries its own registration deadline, so a beginners' class can stay open for a week after the senior entries close.
Two routes put a visiting club on the start list:
- Self-registration. Share the public event link. Gymnasts, or a coach holding the account, open the event, pick the category and submit.
- Import. A club that sends a spreadsheet is imported category by category from an
.xlsxfile with auserNamecolumn and an optionaluserNumbercolumn.
Start numbers travel in userNumber, and the judging list is ordered by them, so the order you publish is the order the panel works through.
A group is entered as one participant under the group name. There is no five-gymnast roster behind it, which matches how a group routine is judged: one exercise, one score.
The apparatus rotation is a per-category setting. Tick what you need from freehand, rope, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon; the selection is stored in FIG order whatever order you click. Three presets cover most invitationals: the FIG individual programme (hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon — the four exercises the Code of Points 2025 to 2028 lists for senior and junior individuals), a beginners' setting with freehand only, and all six. Rope is still on the list because the Code keeps it available for national and local international competitions, not because it sits in the current championship programme.
Seeding stays a human decision. There is no start-order draw in a rhythmic category, and the two draws FIG runs are different animals: the order the gymnasts appear in is drawn in advance of the competition, while the judges are drawn during the judges' briefing before each phase. Most invitationals skip both and keep each club together to cut apparatus changes. Fix the order, write it into the start numbers, and send it out with the entry confirmation.
The panel a visiting coach will accept
Ask a coach who has driven 400 km what they want to know first and the answer is almost always the same: how do you add the scores up? Answer it in the invitation, not at the technical table.
The arithmetic. Each judge on a panel enters one value: a D value they calculated themselves, an A out of 10, or an E out of 10. JudgeMate averages the values inside each panel. With four or more scores on a panel the highest and the lowest come out first and the rest are averaged, which is the trim a FIG jury of four uses. With one to three scores it is a plain mean. The routine total is D + A + E minus the organizer's penalty, floored at zero, and shown to two decimals. Four execution scores of 8.6, 8.8, 9.0 and 9.1 leave (8.8 + 9.0) / 2 = 8.90.
Devices. Every judge signs in on their own phone or tablet and writes into their own slot, so a panel value is assembled from separate entries instead of being read out to one laptop operator. The server recalculates, not the device, and only judges and organizers carrying an approval for that category count towards the mean. Take the approval away and that judge's scores leave the average with them.
Neutrality. FIG answers the awkward question in apparatus finals by seating only judges whose federation has neither a competitor nor the first reserve in that final. An invitational can borrow the idea: when a club has three gymnasts in the rotation, its judge sits that panel out. The drop rule helps here as well, but it only bites once a panel has four scores.
Penalties. Line, time and attire penalties sit in one organizer-only field per routine. Judges cannot reach it, which keeps the awkward conversation about a foot over the line at the technical table where it belongs.
All-around and apparatus rankings in one event
Each apparatus is one routine, and the all-around is the sum of the routine totals inside a category. A senior category running the FIG programme gives every gymnast four routines and one all-around total; a beginners' category running freehand only gives one of each.
Rankings on individual apparatus are computed alongside the all-around, so a hoop podium and a ribbon podium cost nothing extra to award. The tie-break follows the FIG ladder: the higher sum of E scores first, then the higher sum of A scores, then the higher sum of D scores, and gymnasts still level after all three share the place.
Two details worth planning around:
- One category. The all-around is summed inside a single category and never across categories, so an award you want to hand out has to match a category you created. Split by age band and level the way you intend to award, not the way the entry form happens to arrive.
- Real finals. A FIG final carries nothing forward: the eight best on each apparatus start the final from zero. If you want that at your invitational, build the final as its own category holding the finalists and that single apparatus. If you would rather keep one session, the per-apparatus ranking of the qualification is your apparatus result and the invitation should say so.
Routine statuses cover the rest of the day. DNS leaves a routine without a total, DSQ writes a zero, and DNF keeps whatever the panel entered before the music stopped. A gymnast whose routines are all DNS drops out of the ranking but stays visible on the list, which is what a coach who withdrew at the warm-up wants to see.
Live results in the hall and at home
Results sit on a public event page: no account, no app, no download. Send the link with the invitation and a family three time zones away watches the same numbers as the coach on the floor. Scores recalculate on the server within seconds of a judge submitting, so the page moves at the speed of the rotation rather than the speed of the results table being retyped.
The same event has a display route built for an LED wall or a projector, with URL parameters for scale, columns, row count and rotation. Point a spare laptop at it, and the hall reads the standings from the back row.
Inquiries need a plan before the first gymnast salutes. Under FIG rules an inquiry may challenge the D score only. On the electronic system it has to arrive within two minutes of the score being displayed; on the official form it has to reach the inquiry officer before the next gymnast's score appears, with the same two minutes for the last gymnast in a rotation. Artistry and execution deductions are not open to inquiry. JudgeMate has no inquiry queue, so run the human part the FIG way: name an inquiry official, keep a paper form, and when the difficulty judge changes a value the routine total, the all-around, the apparatus ranking and every screen follow within seconds.
One limit belongs in the invitation. There is no results file to hand out for rhythmic gymnastics: the platform has no Excel export at all, and PDF export does not cover the rhythmic scoring table. The public results page is the record, it stays live after the event, and clubs can link to it from their own pages.
Background reading: how rhythmic gymnastics scoring works, how to organize a rhythmic gymnastics competition and competition formats explained. Smaller days: a single-club competition or a grading day. Full sport overview: rhythmic gymnastics on JudgeMate.
Set up your event
Free for organizers. No athlete cap. No commission on registrations. See rhythmic gymnastics features · Organizer guide
Other scenarios
Club competition
One hall, one day, 30–80 gymnasts across age groups. A small panel, a simple apparatus rotation and results parents can read before they leave.
Grading day
Everyone performs, nobody is eliminated, and the score is feedback. One assessor, a short rotation and a gentle first competitive experience.