Paris 2024: What's the new artistic swimming judging system?
Want to know what base marks and declared difficulty are, and the effect they have on scoring in artistic swimming competitions? Find out more before the new system comes into force at Paris 2024.
The artistic swimming competition at Olympic Games Paris 2024 is expected to be more thrilling than ever before. And that's not only because of how spectacular the sport is, but also because a revolution is on its way.
In short, there will be three major changes to artistic swimming at Paris 2024:
- The acrobatic routine has been added to the team competition
- Teams can include two male swimmers
- A new scoring system will be applied at Paris 2024
The new scoring system is only new to the Olympics since it has already been in use at the World Championships since 2023 in Fukuoka, making a significant difference to results.
At the Doha 2024 World Championships, which is taking place from 2 to 18 February, it has already begun to have an impact on the medal table. For example, the three acrobatic routine medallists (People’s Republic of China, Ukraine and the USA) did not receive a base mark. Mexico, who were third in the preliminary round, received two base marks and finished 10th.
So what are base marks and how do they affect scoring?
Read on to discover what the new scoring system consists of, why it is revolutionary for artistic swimming, and the opinion of some key figures in the sport including USA coach Andrea Fuentes, Mexico captain Nuria Diosdado and Spain's coach Mayuko Fujiki.
What is the new judging system in artistic swimming?
Base marks and declared difficulty: a brand new world
In the new artistic swimming scoring system there are two main criteria to evaluate a routine:
- Execution
- Artistic impression
Both have almost the same importance in terms of how they impact the score. Final scores from preliminary rounds are no longer carried forward and coaches are required to give the panel of judges a difficulty card (coach card) detailing the routine, all the elements to be performed in the water and their order of execution.
Each of these elements has a degree of mathematical difficulty, so the coach card details what is known as the declared difficulty ('DD').
The technical controllers are new members of the judging panel. Their role is to evaluate whether swimmers accurately reflect during their routine what has been declared in the coach card.
If an element in the coach card is not performed in the water, includes an error or has a lower difficulty than that which was stated, the element will not receive the points that correspond to the DD but rather a score multiplied by a "base mark". The vast majority of elements are multiplied by 0.5 points, subtracting valuable points from the final score of the routine.
Simply put, if the technical controller, who has the option of reviewing videos of the routine, decides an element is not executed in the manner that has been stated on the card, a lower score will be attributed due to the base marks received.
What is the goal of the new scoring system?
This new scoring system aims to avoid subjectivity when scoring artistic swimming routines since the system of judging is more standardised.
It also makes the competition more exciting, firstly because the results are now unpredictable but also because coaches now have more strategic input.
Is it smarter to take risks and add more difficulty to the coach card, or to lower the difficulty and avoid the risk of those dreaded base marks?
What do people involved in the sport think about the new scoring system?
Mexico captain Nuria Diosdado: "The new system means we can all dream about winning an Olympic medal"
"This new system has taught us that you can go up or down in the ranking because of a mistake. Before, we didn't know the fairest way to analyse errors, which made the competition more predictable. Now I can’t tell you who will win because it depends on the difficulty of the routines, how you execute in the moment and the synergy of the team. We saw that at the 2023 Pan American Games. Olympic qualification meant us Mexicans achieved something we hadn’t seen as feasible. We broke all the barriers.
“After the Pan American Games, we received messages from swimmers all over the world supporting Mexico and being excited about what we did, because as an athlete you also see the possibilities. When you see a nation making history, you say, ‘If they can do it, I can too.’ Of course, the nations that have been at the top of our sport for years are still a reference point but undoubtedly this system means we can all dream about winning an Olympic medal.”
Spain coach Mayuko Fujiki: "The spirit of artistic swimming has almost changed"
"With the new scoring system, even the spirit of artistic swimming has almost changed. For many years there have been two ways of thinking when preparing routines: showing a very technical part or showing an artistic part. Right now, with the new scoring system, you have to focus a lot on technical difficulty and at the same time you have to pay much more attention than before to what other teams are doing and which difficulties the other teams have declared.
"The training sessions are totally different now. Generally, we have a month between competitions and before [the system was applied] we used it to polish routines and achieve better quality in synchronisation, doing more repetitions, and thus improve from the previous competition. But now it is not this: in that month, or even in the last three days before the competition, you use the training to change the routine by increasing the difficulty. How? For example, if we turn 360 degrees three times in three seconds, now we have to do a fourth turn. Now every day of training is different than before.
"With this new system, I think we have to go to the Games having internalised two scenarios: either the security of not failing in the details and lower the level of difficulty on the routine; or, in the event that several countries have very similar difficulty cards, taking risks. This means that we have to train both routines - case 1 and case 2 - and then have the mental agility to know which one we are swimming in. And all this taking into account that in the Games the athlete has more pressure.
"The base marks are still something mysterious for us. When we are waiting for the scores, neither the coaches nor the swimmers know if we are going to receive base marks. This new system forces you to do a lot of strategy during the competition, especially in duos and solos (where the differences in the difficulty cards are generally less different), because you can decide to change the routine and increase the difficulty.
"At the moment, the new scoring system has an exciting part but it also has to be defined more clearly because in competition sometimes as a coach it is difficult to understand the reason for some base marks. It is a new system and we still have to adapt to it. But I see it as positive change for the sport because the competition is more open. The swimmers gain motivation because the results cannot be predicted so much: when we get to the pool, everyone starts from scratch."
Andrea Fuentes, USA's coach: "It is the biggest change in our sport ever"
"[The new system] is the biggest change in our sport ever. It's completely different. I think it is very good because before it was sort of boring as the sport had been the same for so many years. There was no excitement, you knew who was going to win, you knew the entire podium before you started competing.
"It was so hard to reach the top, and that wasn't ok. At the same time, we are going in the right direction but [the new judging system] is like a baby. We are all together trying to define it as a community and after Doha there’s gonna be major changes needed to improve it. But it is very positive because now we don't know who's going to win and you have your own strategy."