THE END OF THE PERFECT 10

Just in time for the 2016 Olympic Games and the fortieth anniversary of Nadia Comaneci's "Perfect 10," this is an exciting and insightful account of the rarefied and controversial world of international elite gymnastics and the recent changes that guarantee there will never be another "perfect" score in the game.

It was the team finals of the women’s gymnastics final in the 2012 Olympics, and McKayla Maroney was flying. The 16-year-old U.S. gymnast was performing arguably the best vault of all time, launching herself unimaginably high into the air and sticking a flawless landing. When her score came, many were baffled: 16.233. Three tenths of a point in deductions stood between her and a perfect score. But if this vault wasn’t perfection, what was?

The answer lies not in the vault itself, but in the scoring system. For years, gymnastics was scored on a 10.0 scale. During this era, 128 women were awarded a Perfect 10. But after the 10.0 scoring system caused major judging controversies at the 2004 Olympics, international elite gymnastics made the switch to the open-ended scoring system it uses today, making perfect scores a thing of the past—and forever altering the sport in the process.

In The End of the 10, gymnastics blogger Dvora Meyers examines the evolution of elite women’s gymnastics over the last few decades. With insight, flair, and a boundless love for the sport, Meyers answers the questions that gymnastics fans have been asking since the last perfect score was handed out over 20 years ago. Why are successful female gymnasts older and more athletic than they were in the era of the Perfect 10? And with gymnasts taking on more and more difficult routines, what does the future of gymnastics hold?

Packed with interviews with judges, coaches, and athletes, The End of the 10 is a captivating account of elite gymnastics’ entry into the uncharted world of imperfection.

Dvora Meyers is a New York-based award-winning writer and journalist. She is a former gymnast and blogs about the sport on her site, Unorthodox Gymnastics. In 2012, she provided all of the Olympic gymnastics coverage for Deadspin and Jezebel, chronicling the results of the competition as well as her own commentary. Her work on the sport has also appeared in Slate and The Atlantic. Her other non-gymnastics related writing has been published in the New York Times, Elle, New York Post, Tablet, and several other publications.