The Hardest Gymnastics Routines: Women’s vs. Men’s Events

Which gymnastics event has the hardest routines?

Looking at the highest final score does not answer that question because elite gymnastics separates difficulty from execution. The difficulty portion is called the D-Score, while the E-Score measures how cleanly the routine is performed.

So if the goal is to compare how difficult elite routines are, the D-Score is usually the most useful number to look at.

There is one important limitation: a 7.0 D-Score on women’s Uneven Bars is not directly equivalent to a 7.0 on a men’s event. Each apparatus uses different skills and difficulty rules.

This article follows the current 2025–2028 FIG scoring system and uses the 2025 World Championships as a real-world example of how difficult top routines can be.

Hardest Gymnastics Routines at a Glance

The table below shows the highest difficulty performed in each apparatus final at the 2025 World Championships.

Event	Women	Men
Vault*	5.6	5.6
Uneven Bars	7.1	—
Balance Beam	6.9	—
Floor Exercise	5.9	6.3
Pommel Horse	—	6.0
Still Rings	—	6.0
Parallel Bars	—	6.1
Horizontal Bar	—	6.4

*Vault is different from the other events because each individual vault already has a fixed difficulty value. The 5.6 figures above are the highest single vault values performed in those finals, not a routine D-Score.

At the 2025 Worlds, Kaylia Nemour reached 7.1 on Uneven Bars and Zhang Qingying reached 6.9 on Balance Beam. On the men’s side, the highest difficulty scores included 6.4 on Horizontal Bar and 6.3 on Floor Exercise.

Based only on those competition numbers, women’s Uneven Bars had the highest D-Score. That does not prove that Bars is physically harder than every other gymnastics event. Different apparatus reward different kinds of difficulty.

What Makes a Gymnastics Routine Difficult?

A hard routine is not simply one that contains a single spectacular skill.

On women’s Uneven Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise, the gymnast builds her D-Score from difficult skills, required types of content, connections and applicable bonuses. The current FIG rules count up to eight difficulty elements on these events.

Men also use eight counting elements on their non-vault events under the current Code, together with Element Group requirements and connection points where the apparatus rules allow them.

A gymnast can therefore raise difficulty by performing harder individual skills or by building more valuable combinations.

But more difficulty also brings more risk. A difficult connection that is broken may lose expected difficulty credit, while falls, poor body position and bad landings reduce the E-Score.

That is why elite gymnasts generally try to perform the hardest routine they can execute consistently, rather than simply packing in as much theoretical difficulty as possible.

For the full calculation, see how the FIG Gymnastics D-Score is calculated.

The Hardest Women’s Gymnastics Routines

Women compete on four events: Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise.

Each presents a different kind of difficulty. Bars rewards complex releases, transitions and connections. Beam combines difficult acrobatics and dance on a surface only 10 centimeters wide. Floor combines tumbling with dance and artistry. Vault compresses almost all of its difficulty into a single explosive skill.

Uneven Bars: The Highest D-Score at the 2025 Worlds

Uneven Bars produced the highest difficulty score of the women’s apparatus finals in Jakarta.

Gymnast	D-Score	E-Score	Final Score
Kaylia Nemour	7.1	8.466	15.566
Yang Fanyuwei	6.7	7.800	14.500
Angelina Melnikova	6.3	8.200	14.500

Nemour’s 7.1 D-Score was the highest in the final.

Bars difficulty can grow through release moves, transitions between the bars, turns, difficult dismounts and direct connections.

Connections are especially important because linking difficult elements can add value without simply adding more skills to the routine. The trade-off is that every ambitious connection creates another opportunity to break rhythm, miss a catch or lose expected credit.

Balance Beam: High Difficulty on a 10 cm Beam

Balance Beam produced another very high D-Score at the 2025 Worlds.

Gymnast	D-Score	E-Score	Final Score
Zhang Qingying	6.9	8.266	15.166
Kaylia Nemour	6.2	8.100	14.300
Aiko Sugihara	6.0	8.166	14.166

Zhang Qingying competed the hardest routine in the final with a 6.9 D-Score.

Beam difficulty comes from acrobatic skills, jumps, leaps, turns, series and connections. Unlike Bars, however, all of this has to be performed on a beam only 10 centimeters wide.

A gymnast does not need to fall to lose an expected difficulty advantage. Hesitation or a broken connection can prevent the D-Panel from awarding the connection or series credit that was planned.

That makes Beam especially unforgiving: the routine can be highly difficult on paper, but the gymnast still has to keep every connection moving while staying on the apparatus.

Women’s Floor: More Difficulty Does Not Always Win

Women’s Floor combines powerful tumbling with leaps, turns, dance and choreography.

At the 2025 World final, Ruby Evans and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea both competed 5.9 D-Scores, the highest in the field.

Neither won.

Aiko Sugihara took the World title with a slightly lower 5.8 D-Score because her execution was stronger.

Gymnast	D-Score	E-Score	Final Score
Aiko Sugihara	5.8	8.033	13.833
Ruby Evans	5.9	7.766	13.666
Sabrina Maneca-Voinea	5.9	7.566	13.466

This is a good example of why the gymnast with the hardest routine does not automatically earn the highest score.

Women’s Vault: One Skill Determines the Difficulty

Vault works differently from Bars, Beam and Floor.

Instead of building a D-Score from several counting skills and connections, each vault already has a fixed difficulty value in the FIG Code of Points.

Examples of very difficult women’s vaults include:

Vault	Difficulty
Biles II — Yurchenko double pike	6.4
Produnova — handspring double front tuck	6.0
Cheng — round-off half-on, front layout with 1½ twists	5.6

FIG assigned the Biles II a 6.4 difficulty when the vault was named, while the current 2025–2028 Code lists the Produnova at 6.0 and the Cheng at 5.6.

The highest vault value actually performed in the 2025 World final was 5.6. Angelina Melnikova used a 5.6 second vault on her way to the title.

This is why a 6.4 vault should not be directly compared with a 6.4 Bars routine:

Vault: one skill has a fixed difficulty value.

Bars, Beam and Floor: multiple skills and other difficulty components combine to produce the D-Score.

For a deeper explanation, see how gymnastics Vault scoring works.

The Hardest Men’s Gymnastics Routines

Men compete on six events: Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Still Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars and Horizontal Bar.

These events make direct comparisons even harder because they demand very different abilities. Rings relies heavily on strength and control, Pommel Horse on rhythm and continuous movement, Horizontal Bar on releases and connections, and Floor on high-level tumbling.

Horizontal Bar: The Highest Men’s D-Score

Horizontal Bar produced the highest men’s apparatus-final D-Score at the 2025 Worlds.

Brody Malone won with:

6.4 D-Score + 8.533 E-Score = 14.933

Joe Fraser competed a 6.3 D-Score and Daiki Hashimoto a 6.2.

Horizontal Bar routines can contain large release moves in which the gymnast completely lets go of the bar before catching it again. Difficult skills can also be connected for additional value.

Those combinations can raise the D-Score quickly, but they also make the routine risky. A missed catch can turn an impressive difficulty advantage into a fall.

Men’s Floor: Powerful Tumbling

Jake Jarman and Kameron Nelson both reached 6.3 difficulty in the 2025 World Floor final.

Jarman won with:

6.3 D-Score + 8.666 E-Score − 0.10 penalty = 14.866

Nelson had the same difficulty but scored considerably lower in execution.

Men’s and women’s Floor should not be treated as identical events. Both include difficult acrobatics, but women’s Floor also includes required dance content and music, while men’s Floor follows its own Element Group and presentation rules.

Parallel Bars: Difficulty vs. Execution

Parallel Bars provides one of the clearest examples of why the hardest routine does not necessarily win.

Gymnast	D-Score	E-Score	Final Score
Zou Jingyuan	6.0	9.300	15.300
Ángel Barajas	6.1	8.266	14.366

Barajas had the harder routine by 0.10.

Zou still beat him by almost a full point because his execution was much cleaner.

Adding difficulty only improves the final score when the gymnast can perform that extra difficulty well enough to make it worthwhile.

Pommel Horse and Still Rings: Two Very Different Kinds of Difficulty

At the 2025 Worlds, the highest D-Score on both Pommel Horse and Still Rings was 6.0.

That does not make the events physically similar.

Pommel Horse depends heavily on continuous circles, flairs, travels, turns, rhythm and coordination. There is little opportunity to stop and recover once the routine begins.

Still Rings demands a very different combination of swinging skills, strength positions and holds while keeping the rings under control.

A 6.0 Pommel Horse routine and a 6.0 Rings routine therefore carry the same numerical D-Score but represent very different types of difficulty.

Men’s Vault: Why the Values Became Lower

Men’s Vault underwent an important numerical change for the 2025–2028 Code.

FIG reduced all men’s vault difficulty values by 0.40. A vault previously worth 6.0 therefore became 5.6, while a former 5.6 became 5.2.

The vaults themselves did not suddenly become easier. FIG changed the values assigned to them.

At the 2025 World final, Carlos Yulo performed a 5.6 first vault on his way to winning the title.

This is also why gymnastics difficulty scores from different rule cycles need to be compared carefully.

Can You Compare D-Scores Between Events or Different Years?

Only with caution.

A D-Score is useful for comparing gymnasts performing the same event under the same scoring rules. It becomes much less useful as a universal measurement of physical difficulty.

For example:

Event	A major source of difficulty
Women’s Uneven Bars	Releases, transitions and connections
Balance Beam	Acro and dance on a 10 cm beam
Women’s Floor	Tumbling, dance and artistry
Men’s Floor	Tumbling and acrobatic combinations
Pommel Horse	Continuous circles, travels and turns
Still Rings	Strength, holds and control
Parallel Bars	Swing, flight and support elements
Horizontal Bar	Releases, turns and connections
Vault	One explosive, high-risk skill

The same problem appears when comparing different years.

Under the previous men’s Code, senior routines could count 10 elements toward difficulty. Under the 2025–2028 Code, the D-Score is based on eight counting elements — the best seven plus the dismount.

As a result, older men’s routines can show D-Scores above 7.0 even though many current elite routines sit closer to the 6-point range.

The lower modern number does not prove that the routines became easier. The scoring formula changed.

For the broader differences between the disciplines, see MAG vs. WAG scoring.

Does the Hardest Routine Usually Win?

No.

Under FIG scoring, the final result combines difficulty and execution, with applicable penalties then affecting the score.

A gymnast might increase the D-Score by 0.20 by adding a harder skill or connection. But if that change creates several execution errors worth more than 0.20, the final score can go down instead of up.

The 2025 Worlds provided clear examples:

• Aiko Sugihara won women’s Floor with a 5.8 D-Score even though two finalists had 5.9.
• Zou Jingyuan won Parallel Bars with a 6.0 D-Score even though Ángel Barajas competed 6.1.

For elite gymnasts, the most effective routine is therefore rarely just the one with the biggest possible D-Score. It is the routine that combines high difficulty with reliable execution.

For more on the other half of the score, see how the FIG Gymnastics E-Score is calculated.

What is the hardest women’s gymnastics event?

There is no official ranking.

If “hardest” means the highest recent D-Score, Uneven Bars stands out: Kaylia Nemour reached 7.1 in the 2025 World final, higher than the top Beam and Floor D-Scores at that competition.

But Balance Beam may be more unforgiving, Floor demands both tumbling and dance, and Vault concentrates enormous difficulty into a single skill. Each event is hard in a different way.

What is the hardest men’s gymnastics event?

There is no single answer here either.

Horizontal Bar produced the highest men’s apparatus-final D-Score at the 2025 Worlds at 6.4, while men’s Floor reached 6.3.

That does not account for every physical demand. Still Rings requires exceptional strength, for example, while Pommel Horse demands unusual coordination, rhythm and endurance.

Are men’s gymnastics routines harder than women’s?

They cannot be ranked fairly with one number.

Men and women compete on different apparatus and build difficulty under different event requirements. A better comparison is between gymnasts performing the same event under the same rules.

Can gymnastics routines get even harder?

Yes.

FIG uses an open-ended difficulty system, so there is no fixed maximum D-Score such as 10.0. Gymnasts can raise difficulty through harder elements, more valuable connections and new skills added to the Code.

But increasing difficulty only helps when the gymnast can perform it reliably enough to keep the execution losses under control.