First ever Barbados Invitational!

[Bajanswife]

The meet itself was pretty cool - some small issues but nothing major at all. We only ran about 15 minutes over time by the end of the night, which was thanks to our experienced meet director from SC who scheduled the whole thing really accurately! We held the meet in an aviation museum in which one of the British Airways concorde supersonic jets is parked - the vault runway passed right under one of the wings! We had so many comments from parents, coaches and judges about the "coolness" factor of the meet venue. We brought down 4 judges from the U.S. - they judged alone for levels 1 - 4 and then they teamed up and we had only 2 squads going at a time for levels 5 - 7 and our lone level 9.

My own DD had her best meet ever on her own home turf - I was so happy about that! She won level 4 ages 7 - 9 with a 37.25 and the following:

Vault: 9.4 - gold
Bars - 9.4 - silver (her best friend got the gold with 9.45)
Beam - 9.0 - gold
Floor - 9.45 - gold

Some of the stronger girls were not in that age division, which was part of what allowed my DD to win. We saw some scores of 9.6 and 9.7 in the 10 - 11 age group.

We already have 2 U.S. teams lined up to come next year, and of course regional teams from Trinidad will come again. We hope we will get Venezuela back and maybe Puerto Rico will be able to send some teams next time as well. We limited the levels competed so that we could save on the number of judges we had to have - as a first meet we needed a small budget. Next year we may invite some higher levels as well if we can swing it.

All in all an extremely successful meet!

 

[bogwoppit]

Now that is so cool. I love the venue you used. What a neat idea.

I know Rick McCharles promotes meets on his blog. tumbling, tramp, diving, acrobatics, circus, cheer, dance, martial arts, X sports … — Gymnastics Coaching.com Maybe if you have some pictures you could send him some when you have your dates solid for next year. I know teams plan way ahead for these kinds of meets. Plus you can post it here.

Finally, and most importantly, congrats to your little one for her AA win!

 

[Bajanswife]

Thanks Bog, for the congrats and the link!

We got some funding from a Governmental body to promote next year's event, so we will have a professionally developed website with photos and maybe videos as well that can be linked to. We are trying to have that ready by June so that it can get onto US meet calendars. We would also like to develop an invitation flyer that can be e-mailed to any interested clubs. We would be more than thrilled to have some Canadian teams too, if they can adjust to the USAG routines/requirements.

There are direct flights from Toronto on AC and Westjet, and we deliberately schedule the meet for after April 15th when airfares and hotel costs usually come down. For the Americans, there are direct flights every day from NY and Miami, and on certain days from DFW.

 

[Bajanswife]

Oh, and because of the support we got from sponsors and donors, we actually made a good bit of money from this meet to help fund next year's meet and buy new equipment! We also made money at the concession stand that will go towards our gymnast travel fund. It was a very successful event!

 

[Ingwe]

That sounds like such a cool meet. I am glad that it was such a success for your club.

Congrats to your DD on having such an awesome meet

 

[bogwoppit]

Get that out to the Canadian federation as soon as you can. Ontario is supposed to go from it's current 10 level system to the USAG one next year. So that could be a great fit. The rest of Canada uses a different system, but I know that clubs take their girls who are at the optional levels to away meets. Doesn't work for our girls with L6 and under skills as we do optional skills routines for them.

Glad you were able to get good support and some money for the gym too. I am sure the tourism office would be very interested in this concept too.

 

[Bajanswife]

Get that out to the Canadian federation as soon as you can. Ontario is supposed to go from it's current 10 level system to the USAG one next year. So that could be a great fit. The rest of Canada uses a different system, but I know that clubs take their girls who are at the optional levels to away meets. Doesn't work for our girls with L6 and under skills as we do optional skills routines for them.

Glad you were able to get good support and some money for the gym too. I am sure the tourism office would be very interested in this concept too.

Ontario is a perfect fit too with the direct flights out of Toronto.

It was our Tourism Developmenrt Corporation that gave us the funding for next year's meet - "sports tourism" is a growing sector here!

 

[sportzmomov3]

Now this is a location I wouldn't mind traveling to!

Congratulations to your DD, and to your gym for a successful meet!