Comparison to US system

[Learning Parent GB]

Do the levels 1 - 10 in Australia compare in any way to the US system levels 1 - 10? Or do some gyms even use the US system? Somebody was talking about the system in Australia today and used a term something olympic to do with the levels and progression. So I wondered whether she meant Junior olympic and have had a bit of a read on the Australian system and can't find reference to that.

 

[JessSyd]

I do not think you will find a reference to Olympic as a descriptor in our levels system.

We really only have the one system rather than multiple streams. Once we had an elite stream, and national, state and club level gymnastics depending on the number of hours the girls wanted to put in. Now (in my state at least) it is just the one set of Australian Levels. Some clubs still train ‘elite’ but there is no longer a separate competition stream for that until the girls reach level nine.

Our levels do not correspond neatly to the US JO levels and the US system is not used here. Our early levels tend to be slightly easier than their US counterparts. The higher levels did too, but my understanding is that this is being addressed by the gradual phasing in of higher difficulties in levels 7 to 10.

Some things we do differently (for example here we compete the front handspring a level before we compete the roundoff back handspring. My understanding is that it is the other way around in the US? Or the same level there?).

Some skills competed in the US are not even taught as a routine thing here - mill circles, front hip circles etc.

I am just a parent though. A coach will probably be able to give you much more detailed (and possibly less error filled?) information.

 

[Learning Parent GB]

Thank you. That really helps. I'm in the UK so used to the many pathways, and found a diagram on your new 1 - 10 system so I was really just curious if it was called JO or anything, but it sounds like definitely not. I suspect the explanation was just about the single pathway leading towards the olympics for everyone and that you couldn't be on the wrong pathway. But then none of us involved in the chat have any hopes of making it that far, so to my mind it doesn't really matter - but I wanted to try and understand what they were saying.

 

[Aussie_coach]

The levels in Australia are somewhat similar to the levels in the USA.

Australian Level 4 is similar to US level 3, Australian Level 5 is similar to US level 4 and so on.

 

[OzZee]

Maybe they were talking about FIG? So the olympics are judged on FIG regulations, US has it's own regulations until elite.

 

[OzZee]

Thank you. That really helps. I'm in the UK so used to the many pathways, and found a diagram on your new 1 - 10 system so I was really just curious if it was called JO or anything, but it sounds like definitely not. I suspect the explanation was just about the single pathway leading towards the olympics for everyone and that you couldn't be on the wrong pathway. But then none of us involved in the chat have any hopes of making it that far, so to my mind it doesn't really matter - but I wanted to try and understand what they were saying.

Whilst not as complicated as the UK system (could anything be that complicated!) the Australian system does have streams. At the present time for WAG they are levels 1-9 (but with a definite in age component) then into future international, junior, senior international. there is crossover from levels. Maybe more than there used to be but being an aged based sport maybe not so much. A few years ago (5?) there were 3 streams in most states. IDP which was the stream to elite, national stream NDP, which was the most usual stream and a lot of states also had a state stream for kids doing less hours etc.
No not called JO. The word olympic isn't used at all here, unless actually referring to the Olympic Games.
Kids planning to end up in the elite stream (future-senior) are generally still trained in different groups with much higher hours than those on a regular levels program.
All our gymsports have age based requirements for competition, so often a junior division will be an elite path as they will be age eligible. though it depends on the sport but ages are defined by the gymsport body.

 

[Star078]

Each state is different. Victoria still has divisions based on hours trained and they also have gymstar which is recreational competitive

 

[Cmumgym]

Within wag and mag that gymnastics in Australia has had nothing compared to anywhere else in the world. Between politics money and coaching skills. Australia cannot compete. We do not give enough gratitude and financial stability towards well rounded coaches in the sport compared to other countries and therefore we find ourselves as lacking to be able to increase our level of skills in the sport. Biomechanics in gymnastics is something a lot of gyms in Australia do not give the funds to coaches to learn. A lot of gyms in Australia home bread talent which then gets snatched up by ais etc which them through gymnasts who are home bread do not react the same way and do not have the funding through politics to survive as we are not seen as a superior sport in the country. We are then left with nothing