Gymnast Trinity Thomas flips through the air and lands. Above her, a videoboard flashes a number: 10.00.

A perfect score.

Miss Thomas’s teammates flood around her. She can feel the joy in the building.

What did it take to get here? Years and years of training. Thousands of practices. Countless meets. At last, judges watched Miss Thomas float from bar to bar and couldn’t find a single thing wrong with her performance.

That was in 2020. Since then, Miss Thomas has earned more perfect scores. Twenty-seven more. Gymnastics buffs are stunned by her record.

But how many 10s is too many? Nearly 50 years ago, gymnast Nadia Comaneci competed at the Olympics. She got the first 10 ever awarded at the Games. To fans, the name Nadia Comaneci started to mean perfect.

But now many other gymnasts are “perfect” too. Last year, judges gave out 71 perfect 10 scores. In the years before, judges awarded fewer than half as many perfect 10s. Are gymnasts getting better? Or are judges just going easier on the athletes?

Today, Ms. Thomas is a college gymnast. College meets are shorter than some other competitions. This helps keep athletes from getting injured or too tired. But shorter routines mean less time to make mistakes.

Still, college gymnasts seem to have more skill than ever. The sport grows more popular. More and more talented gymnasts come to compete.

Some worry: If judges give too many 10s, will the perfect score stop meaning as much?

Like everything in gymnastics, it’s a balance. Gymnast Jordan Chiles has some advice: Don’t think too much about a perfect score. “If you get a 10, you get a 10,” she says. “Good for you. Have fun with it. Celebrate.”

Why? We may long to perform perfectly. But nothing human is truly perfect—only God is.