The Evaluation Rules in the View of the Rhythmic Gymnastics Judges

The Code of Points (CoP) is the evaluation tool of Rhythmic Gymnastics (RG) and contributes to its evolution as sport. This tool is applied in competition by the judges who have a crucial role in the performance evaluation. The aim of this study was to characterize the International judges, their perception of the objectivity of their judgment in competitions and their opinions about the content and the reliability of the Code of Points. 162 international RG judges answered a questionnaire specially designed for this study. For the data analysis, non-parametric tests were used. According to the judges, the evaluation of the difficulty component in the individual routines has more subjectivity in the items of Mastery (58.6%) and Dance Steps (55.6%) and is less subjective in the body difficulties of Balance (72.2%). Concerning the execution, the judges consider that the evaluation of the artistic faults is the most subjective in this domain (64.8%). Within the artistic faults the items unity of the composition and relation between the Music and the Movements, were those which registered higher significant results for the subjectivity in the evaluation (47.5% and 37.0%, respectively).