Perfect 10 (gymnastics)

Perfect 10 refers to a score of 10.00 for a single routine in artistic gymnastics, which was once thought to be unattainable—particularly at the Olympic Games—under the code of points set by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG). The first person to score a perfect 10 at the Olympic Games was Romanian Nadia Comăneci, at the 1976 Games in Montreal. Other women who accomplished this feat at the Olympics include Mary Lou Retton in 1984, and Daniela Silivaș and Yelena Shushunova in 1988. The first man to score a perfect 10 was Alexander Dityatin, at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

The FIG changed its code of points in 2006. There are now different top scores, all greater than 10, for the various events, based upon difficulty and artistic merit; there is no consistent perfect score.

Men's Artistic Gymnastics had been an Olympic sport since the beginning of the modern games. Women's gymnastics were introduced as a single (team) event in the 1928 games, but were not expanded until the 1952 games, when there were seven events. The International Federation of Gymnastics first drew up a code of points—for men—in 1949.

The code of points was based on a maximum of 10. While some sources claim a score greater than 9.95 was considered "impossible" prior to 1976, in fact Věra Čáslavská achieved perfect 10s in the 1967 European Championships, which were displayed on a manual scoreboard. Prior to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Omega, the official timers, asked the International Olympic Committee how many digits it should allow on the electronic scoreboard, and were told that three digits would be sufficient, as a score of 10.00 would not be possible.

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