WAG UK catch up after the British, Classic Challenge, Challenge Qualifier and New Levels

[Jenny]

Catch up on everyone's thoughts after the recent national competitions and regional levels.

What do we all think? Did BG pitch the levels right?

What do we think will change next year? Did clubs in your area pitch their gymnasts correctly?

What would you like to see change next year?

 

[Learning Parent GB]

I didn't see this at the time. I do wonder what BGs thoughts were.


I think we saw a lot of crossover between the girls at the top of bronze and those doing silver. Bars probably being the issue - some clubs putting the gymnasts in for silver with missing CRs, others keeping the gymnasts at bronze.
That meant (for bronze) that on floor in particular the maximum D score was often exceeded and had to be limited by the judges.

Then the wide range of abilities at bronze left some gymnasts feeling disheartened that they were against much better gymnasts with more difficult skills. They are still at quite a young age and don't understand that the execution is what matters and not just the skills done.

Watching national finals of all 3 levels, it wasn't always obvious which routines were bronze/silver or which were silver/gold. But I wasn't clear how much of that was down to people still settling into competing after covid.

So overall I like the theory behind the new levels, but it still didn't feel quite right last year and I look forward to seeing this year after more normal training times.

 

[Jenny]

I didn't see this at the time. I do wonder what BGs thoughts were.


I think we saw a lot of crossover between the girls at the top of bronze and those doing silver. Bars probably being the issue - some clubs putting the gymnasts in for silver with missing CRs, others keeping the gymnasts at bronze.
That meant (for bronze) that on floor in particular the maximum D score was often exceeded and had to be limited by the judges.

Then the wide range of abilities at bronze left some gymnasts feeling disheartened that they were against much better gymnasts with more difficult skills. They are still at quite a young age and don't understand that the execution is what matters and not just the skills done.

Watching national finals of all 3 levels, it wasn't always obvious which routines were bronze/silver or which were silver/gold. But I wasn't clear how much of that was down to people still settling into competing after covid.

So overall I like the theory behind the new levels, but it still didn't feel quite right last year and I look forward to seeing this year after more normal training times.

I agree. Lots of gymnasts in Silver/ Bronze were interchangeable. I felt they could have just been the same level. Lots of the Bronze gymnasts looked a higher level than Silver.

The idea that all the gymnasts would put in skills to the best of their ability and we would see a large variation of skills just didn't happen. There was a stock list of tumbles most people used to fulfil criteria most efficiently. And that mostly happened on all pieces (and we saw that at the lower levels too at Zinc and Copper). No point competing something risky just because you have it. So that was disappointing but expected.

The idea was that gymnasts would add difficulty in Bronze until they could compete Silver etc but I don't think that will happen. Yes that would be progressive but won't really help your score or win medals. So it didn't really work this year.

I am looking forwards to seeing what happens next year. I feel a turned vault was very significant at Bronze.