Parents Competing to Compete

[z2akids]

Is this really a thing? Is it common for girls at compulsory and low optional levels to have to compete within theit gym I order to be allowed to attend meets?


This is a rumor that seems to make its way through some of our team mom's about this time every year. They worry about how can our girls beat these girls training more hours, especially when they also have to be the top girls in their own gym or they wouldn't be allowed to attend meets.

I see several problems with this rumorning. First of all, some of these teams bring large numbers of compulsory gymnasts to the meets we attend. Definitely these girls tend to be on the podium a lot. Also, meets have scratch deadlines a long time before meets. So, how would it even work for gyms to take only those girls who are the best thst week?

I think this is a way to feel better about some of the stoff competition our gym faces from gyms that are far more serious than my DD's gym. Our gym does well. But, I would call us top of the 2nd tier more than 1st tier.

 

[cftmoonlight]

We do it for one meet out of the year. We take our top 5 compulsory all arounders from our first two competions to a special "big" meet, usually Chicago. So for that one meet, they have to earn their spot. All of our optionals go.

 

[cftmoonlight]

We do it for one meet out of the year. We take our top 5 compulsory all arounders from our first two competions to a special "big" meet, usually Chicago. So for that one meet, they have to earn their spot. All of our optionals go.

 

[gymdog]

No, that's not common. It would be a nightmare for meet fees, assessments, etc. Possibly they have gymnasts scratch an event or wait to start competing until they have all the skills, so that might be how the rumor got started, but I doubt it's like its being presented.

 

[gymmomtotwo]

No, never heard of anything like that. Everyone competes at all the meets. If you aren't competent at the level you aren't placed in it to start with. Do some meets have a number limit for teams? I can't imagine why any gym would do this.

 

[SurpriseGymMom]

Granted I'm no expert but so far I haven't heard anything like that from any of the gyms we have ever competed against. If you are competent in your events, you go. Level decisions and meet registrations are done way in advance. Scratches do still happen, of course, but not en masse.... To implement that, a gym would have to register all the gymnasts and then scratch those who didn't "qualify" that week. That's a lot of money to put out up front and unless there's a serious injury or something, I doubt they get the entry fee back...

 

[Gymmommy71]

Never heard of that happening in regular JO at any gym around me or any gym that my daughter has attended. Can't even see how it would save money unless gyms have a huge team and only want to send one coach to a travel meet (one coach in a hotel +flight versus two is cheaper). Yeah, there's always a per gymnast cost for the meet entry, but the parent is usually gonna cover that no matter what.

I guess if a gym really wants to put the pressure on their athletes and make themselves look good at meets by only sending the cream of the crop I could see them doing this, but I would think the internal drama this would cause would be awful and nowhere near worth it.

I have heard of some gyms not sending kids to their state competition unless they got certain scores that were way above the qualification score. Heard about it on this board, not about any specific gyms in my area though. I don't think the area where I live is a very intense/competitive area for gymnastics though.

 

[Natasha]

Never heard of that. As far as Team competition, most competitions use the top 3 scores on each event to figure the team score, however, there is one large meet that we used to attend in which you had to pre-designtate your team competitors prior to the start of the competition for their scores to count towards the team score. So, in this case, I can see it making sense for the girls to "compete" to get a spot as a designated team member to count towards the team competition. However, this does not affect any individual girls competing or anything, it is simply that those are the 4 scores that get counted for the team score, rather than taking the top 3 scores per event out of everyone on the team.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Our gym whatever level you are you compete.

And what if another gym does this?

There are kids who do more hours.
There are kids who do the same level for multiple years.
In a level that is not compulsory kids compete different skills, and parents will say that they are easier skills.
There are teams who dominate the podiums at meets.
Team scores are calculate differently depending on the meet.
Even though you are a team, you technically compete against your team.

These things are not going away.

This is gymnastics. It is what is.

The parents would be better served to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and keep the focus on their own kid. And that is what I tell the parents at our gym when they start to get on the crazy bus.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

One more thing the ages groups change depending on the make up of the meet.
So depending on who is in age group will change placement. Your kid could score higher then the kids in another age group and not even place. And a kid with a lower score then some one else will place First all around because of the age group.

It's gymnastics

 

[Gymmommy71]

I've never heard of a USAG JO meet doing anything other than top 3 on each event as the formula for team score.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

I've never heard of a USAG JO meet doing anything other than top 3 on each event as the formula for team score.

I've seen, top 3, top 4 or top 5. It depends on the size of the meet and size of teams attending

 

[mom2newgymnast]

It's definitely not something done at dd's gym and I've never heard of anyone doing it either.

 

[gymdog]

Also possible that if their number competing fluctuates at some meets that they make some meets optional and some parents and gymnasts are choosing to go to the minimum. That I have heard of. And I wouldn't be surprised if those who enjoy competing more and tend to win more would tend to sign up for more meets on average...

 

[MILgymFAM]

Can I ask if this is a JO gym? I know that at usaigc meets the teams are divided by team size for awards, so maybe they are trying to stay in the small team category?

 

[JoyAvenueMom]

Kipper moved from a less-competitive gym to the gym that is extremely competitive. (lots of podium placements, 1st place team nearly every local meet). I can tell you that nearly every rumor I heard about the competitive gym was absolutely false. And there were some doozies. The funniest (and worst) were the ones started by Kipper's coaches at the former gym. I think your intuition is probably correct. The only "rumor" that was true, is that the new gym practices more hours (not by much, though). Other than that, the real differences are coaching and commitment.

 

[z2akids]

For whoever asked, yes we are JO. Thanks all. I honestly couldn't figure out how that would work with meet fees and meet deadlines. I mean, I know that for some meets after a certain point you can't just substitute names - like you can't just sign up for 12 L4 spots at a meet and tell the names of the gymnasts right before the meet. And, when you look at mymeetscores, most of the gymnasts listed at a level have scores for about the same number of meets.

I tend to wonder if rumors about other teams are present at every gym. I can understand how these rumors start. I think parents need something to justify why multiple girls at some of these meets are scoring 38+, competing kips at L3, etc. Now, our gym isn't bad. We get lots of individual placement/podiums and DD's team has been top 2 or 3 at almost every meet (until you get to some of those HUGE meets). But, her team tends to be spread out throughout the placements unlike some teams who have almost all of the girls in those podium spots. I personally think it is because of our gym's philosophy that is more family oriented and life balance focused and we do not pump out high level optionals. There are local gyms where I am not sure my DD would be on the team where she is always top 1/3 on her team.

I find the whole thing frustrating. I know we all get upset about girls who may have significantly higher skills than the level they compete or the hours or TOPS, etc. But, if those things upset you, then why not go to one of those gyms rather than being derogatory about the gymnasts?

 

[aerials]

There are some gyms here that do that for the state meet. Ohio state meets split into two groups, American and National with the latter being the bigger teams. Some of the bigger teams artificially keep their teams low for state so tha they have a better chance of winning the team placement. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of the two different divisions.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

There are some gyms here that do that for the state meet. Ohio state meets split into two groups, American and National with the latter being the bigger teams. Some of the bigger teams artificially keep their teams low for state so tha they have a better chance of winning the team placement. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of the two different divisions.

So girls who qualify for states don't go. Well that s***s

 

[z2akids]

There are some gyms here that do that for the state meet. Ohio state meets split into two groups, American and National with the latter being the bigger teams. Some of the bigger teams artificially keep their teams low for state so tha they have a better chance of winning the team placement. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of the two different divisions.

Interesting. I hadn't noticed that. Granted, our gym has large enough teams that (for compulsories anyway) we fall into the National group. We would definitely be more competitive in the American group than against the Buckeyes, CGAs and Perfections, etc. of Ohio. But, I had no idea that some teams kept gymnasts at home to avoid having to compete against those powerhouses. I would never want our gymnasts to stay at home in order to be more competitive as a team.