ATHENS, Aug. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- There is little chance for a gymnast to get the full points of 10 in his or her final score at the upcoming Athens Olympic Games, a technical official of the Federations of International Gymnastics (FIG) said here Wednesday.

    Xiao Guanglai, a member of the FIG technical committee, told Xinhua at the Olympic Indoor Hall, the venue for the Athens Olympics gymnastics competitions, that there is no change in the gymnastics scoring system at the Athens Olympics.

    According to the current rule, there are eight referees from different countries and regions judging one apparatus. When a gymnast is performing, two referees are only in charge of judging the starting value of the routine. The other six are in charge ofdeducting points when the gymnast makes errors in the performance.After the routine, all the six referees will make scores, the highest and the lowest of which will be erased. The final score of the gymnast is the average points of the remaining four.

    As the ceiling of the starting value is 10 points and no point-adding system is available, a gymnast would get 10 points if he orshe could make 100 percent accurate routine with the starting value of 10.

    "That is impossible, as the starting value of 10 itself has told you clearly the difficulty of fulfiling the routine flawlessly," Xiao said.

    "However, it is possible for one of the six referees to give 10 points to a gymnast, but that 10 might be erased as the highest score," he added.

    "And reviewing the world championships and the European championships in recent years, we have not seen a single gymnast who has that power to break the ceiling," he said.

    "Anyway, I wish that breakthroughs could emerge in Athens," Xiao said. Enditem