Winter Olympics: Figure skating team event tie breaker rules

What happens if there’s a tie during the figure skating team event at the Olympics?

Handing out Olympic medals is a tedious process that cannot go wrong. Athletes work their whole careers to get in a position to take home gold, but ultimately it comes down to judges and what they believe is the best performance.

Figure skating has long been criticized for shoddy scoring, with allegations being levied that certain judges prefer certain skaters thus swinging the vote with personal bias. That has indeed been the case in the past, but it’s not a free-for-all when it comes to how the skaters are technically judged.

There’s a very defined set of rules that need to be followed based on certain events playing out. One of those scenarios is a tie in the team event program — something that triggers a laundry list of things that are taken into account to determine a winner.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the tiebreaker rules, in case we need them in South Korea. Prepare yourself, it’s a lot:

The highest total team points from the two best places will break the ties:

1. If they remain tied, the highest total segment scores of the current segment of the two best places according to the team points will break the tie
2. If they remain tied, the highest total team points from the three best places will break the ties.
3. If they remain tied, the highest total segment scores of the current segment of the three best places according to the team points will break the ties.
4. If these criteria fail to break the ties, the teams will be considered as tied
5. If the teams are tied for a qualifying place all tied teams will qualify for the final

Basically, if there’s a tie in the team event, we’re all going to be that GIF of Charlie from It’s Always Sunny. Get your corkboard and red string to try and figure things out.