Judge

A judge is a sports official whose job is to evaluate the quality of a performance and turn it into a score, rather than to enforce play or count goals. In judged sports such as figure skating, gymnastics, diving, surfing and snowboarding, a panel of judges watches each routine, run or dive and awards marks for how well it was executed and, in many formats, for how difficult it was. The judges' marks are then combined — often after dropping the highest and lowest to limit bias — to produce the result, so the outcome depends on expert assessment against published criteria rather than on a clock or a tally of goals.

The same idea appears in combat sports: in boxing, judges score each round and their scorecards decide the winner whenever a bout is not ended early by a knockout or stoppage, while karate, taekwondo, judo and wrestling use judges to assess techniques and award or confirm points. Because judging is inherently subjective, most systems use several judges, define scoring bands or difficulty tables, and set tie-break rules for competitors on equal marks. The word 'judge' is also used for technical officials who rule on legality rather than artistry — for example stroke judges who confirm a swim was performed correctly, or finish and placing judges who decide the order across the line — but the defining feature in every case is an official making an evaluative call.