Other / worldcup

This quad (or actually this 3-year period) before the 2024 Olympics, we are seeing, more and more frequently as the Paris Games are getting closer, many gymnasts who, rather than trying to pack the most difficult acrobatic skills on their floor routines, are basing their D-Scores on having many dance elements, such as jumps, leaps, hops & turns, trying to boost the artistry, which is highly valued by judges in the current gymnastics CoP. As an example, this video breaks down French gymnast Marine Boyer's floor exercise at the 2023 Baku World Cup, which gave her the gold medal in this event. Marine, rather than doing 4 tumbling passes, as most gymnasts with high D-Scores do, only performed 2 passes, the bare minimum required, still fulfilling her composition requirements, doing just the minimum number of acro skills required, 3, and packing her routine with difficult dance elements. While one of her dance skills was downgraded and was not counted towards the final D-Score (watch the video carefully to see which skill it is), she had enough difficulty and a series of connected elements that helped her get a decent difficulty score that allow her to clinch the floor title. It is still very early in the season, so Marine has plenty of time to tweak her routine and get an even better score by the time the world championship, and she might even get a chance to compete on floor at the team final and maybe even at the floor final. In the meantime, enjoy her routine.