A
Anonymous (2443)
In her first meet this season, my DD was warming up on beam, fell on a turn, and fractured her tibia b/c the 8" mat under the beam had been pulled farther to one side by a coach during warmups to accommodate a taller teammate that was dismounting at the same time off the other side and otherwise would have landed off the mat. This caused my DD to land half on and half off the mat. Can anyone explain why such narrow 8 incher mats are placed under beam at many gyms/competitions and why wider mats or two such mats aren't used (it looks like there is maybe 2.5 feet to each side)? Is this a USAG regulation? The next day, my other L2 DD had a meet and I saw multiple girls fall and come close to doing to same thing, has anyone else had issues with this? Can/should anything be done? I was also recently at a college meet and noticed that they do not use such mats under the beam but rather have one continuous surface, which seems much safer to me.
On a related note, my daughter is finally almost fully healed (yeah!) and has an outside shot at being able to compete at the state meet, which she really wants to do. The problem is that b/c she was injured warming up for the first event in her first meet, she has not achieved the required score at her level to qualify for states. Does anyone know if there is any way to petition to compete w/o the score should she be ready to go?
Thanks!
On a related note, my daughter is finally almost fully healed (yeah!) and has an outside shot at being able to compete at the state meet, which she really wants to do. The problem is that b/c she was injured warming up for the first event in her first meet, she has not achieved the required score at her level to qualify for states. Does anyone know if there is any way to petition to compete w/o the score should she be ready to go?
Thanks!