Fall

A fall is the most expensive single fault in gymnastics. The 2025–2028 women’s Code lists as falls: falling to the knees or hips on the mat, falling on or against the apparatus, and failing to land feet first from a skill. The men’s Code treats a fall, or support with one or both hands, during a landing in the same way.

What a fall costs:

• 1.00 from the E-score, whatever caused it.
• Possibly the skill’s value. In women’s gymnastics, a skill not landed feet first gets no difficulty value and can’t count for connection value, composition requirements or the dismount bonus. In men’s gymnastics, an element isn’t recognised if the gymnast falls during it.
• Connections and bonuses involving that skill.
• On vault, not landing feet first makes the vault invalid: it scores zero.

After a fall the gymnast has time to recover — 10 seconds to remount women’s beam, 30 seconds on women’s bars and all men’s apparatus — and the routine is ended if they haven’t resumed within 60 seconds.