MAG How long do meets really have to be??

[momto2js]

Maybe a few years ago I was a new gym parent and I was excited and the time seemed to fly by. But I swear 5 years ago meets took far less time. Like 4-5 hours and we were done. Today was our first of the year and the session started at 1pm and awards ended at 7:35. That was for 72 6-10's!! REALLY??? Is there no way to get this done faster?? Is there a reason that clubs won't run smaller sessions that last 3 hours and then another one that lasts 3 hours? At least that way the kids would not have 45 mins to an hour between warming up an event and then competing. We talk about the importance of stretching and warming up before every practice to prevent injury, but at a meet they stretch at the beginning, but they the time they walk in and compete, there is no way they are still physically ready to go. Today's meet was about the limit of my 11 year old's patients. If indeed competitions are going to last 5 hours on a regular basis, then we need to start having awards sent home with coaches and given a the next practice. 7 hours is just too long.

 

[krc]

That is an unacceptable length time for a meet. Large capital cup meets take 4.5 hrs. There is no way 72 kids should take that long. Not enough judges? scoring problems?

 

[profmom]

That is awful! 72 is not an unreasonable number for a session. I wonder if having 6-10 was part of the problem. That makes for a lot of equipment adjustment. I hope they at least had two mushrooms and a pommel-less horse set up?? But it does sound like something went really badly wrong in the organization.

 

[skschlag]

I agree. We had a state meet once take 8 hours, but that was over 100 boys, 2 flights, and L5. So they were really newbies. Sounds like poor organization or something.

How did he do? Did he have fun despite the many hours?

 

[skschlag]

I agree. We had a state meet once take 8 hours, but that was over 100 boys, 2 flights, and L5. So they were really newbies. Sounds like poor organization or something.

How did he do? Did he have fun despite the many hours?

 

[profmom]

I hope he had some food in his bag and that he, unlike my child, will actually eat during a meet! I bet there were not a lot of guys who went six for six at that one.

 

[2G1B]

That is crazy long. I haven't been to one that lasted that long. Did something seem off organizationally to cause it to go longer?

 

[Madden3]

A couple years ago my youngest competed at a "judges cup" that was seemingly endless like that. Iirc it started at 2 or 3 and we did not get out of there until almost 9! This was a "practice" meet where the judges talk to each of the kids after they 'go' and give them tips. And every event had more than one judge, and I guess some of the judges were a little long winded. There were not even any awards- that is how long it took for all the kids to circuit.

What made it worse is that even though the host gym warned every gym when they signed up that seating would be limited and to please send only one adult per gymnast, many people brought their whole families- multiple kids, grandparents etc. and there was only seating for maybe half the spectators. Oh and no snack bar... Tempers flared!

 

[momto2js]

It was more likely that kids fell off 6 for 6 than hit 6 for 6. Our whole year last year was like that. I don' know what has changes here, but at least 5 hours on the floor and 1.5 seems to be the new norm. Our coach staged a multi team competitive bottle flipping contest at one point!! I don't know where the pressure has to come from to make meet directors better manage time, but honestly.

My kid is a middle if the pack gymnast, so the goal is generally not to be last, and he wasn't. So I guess it was a success. The group of 6s we have this year is a good group of guys, so they had a good time hanging out together.

This is not new this year. Even our regional session last year was really long. I think that session ran from 4 to to 10 and awards ran until after 11.

 

[profmom]

I can only remember a couple of sessions that long. I won't name the meets, but one was a huge meet with two flights of boys; they some kind of plan for having one flight warm up while the other was competing and doing three events in succession that fell apart midway through the meet. The boys reported at 7:30 and we didn't finish awards until 1:30 or 2. There were a lot of really angry coaches. The other was not such a big meet, but it was L7 through 10. Things started going off the rails almost immediately when they decided to have "open warmups" rather than rotating the teams through the events in orderly succession. Kids were walking across the vault track to get to the other equipment while L10s were warming up their vaults. Our team wound up with about eight minutes to go not having gotten into the high bar queue/mess; the host gym was already there and took repeated turns. Each of our guys got at most one touch; a couple guys didn't even get a touch. Even though they rushed through awards as fast as it is humanly possible to do so, we didn't get out of there until around 11 PM. The open warmup chaos started at 5.

We go to some big meets, one of which had 120 guys in a session without two full sets of equipment last year. We were in and out in five hours. I think some of what you're describing has to be poor organization. I'm glad your guys at least had a good time! I'm just thinking about how badly MY butt and back would be hurting after that.

 

[rosiekat]

Oh, that just sounds so painful!

I think the worst one we've dealt with so far was just long for the tallying and awards part. The actual meet time was about average, maybe a bit long - but the tallying and awards took around 3 hours! And this was not a particularly large meet, there was definitely no reason for it to take that long. Adding to the fun was the woman in charge of it, who kept addressing everyone as if we were naughty schoolchildren.

The longest meets in my experience tend to be the ones where the groups are divided unevenly. That's typically at some of our smaller local meets, where you may have a team of 15 but only one coach, so that one team always takes long in the rotation.

 

[acam1103]

That sounds brutal, especially since it doesn't sound like it was a one time thing. We had some longer meets last year but they were all clearly due to the addition of D1/D2. Awards went on FOREVER, because they went through all the age groups at each division (levels 4/5). One even broke up one of the age groups so there were awards for D1 and D2 at ages 6, 7, 8, young 9s, old 9s, 10, and 11+. And of course they went out a ton of places for each one. It seemed like everyone got more efficient at the awards ceremonies as the season went on and directors got more used to the divisions issue.

 

[profmom]

That sounds brutal, especially since it doesn't sound like it was a one time thing. We had some longer meets last year but they were all clearly due to the addition of D1/D2. Awards went on FOREVER, because they went through all the age groups at each division (levels 4/5). One even broke up one of the age groups so there were awards for D1 and D2 at ages 6, 7, 8, young 9s, old 9s, 10, and 11+. And of course they went out a ton of places for each one. It seemed like everyone got more efficient at the awards ceremonies as the season went on and directors got more used to the divisions issue.

We went to one like that a few years ago. It took them forever to tabulate, and then the awards just dragged on into eternity. I SWEAR that I was convinced they were going to start handing medals to the parents any minute. "And in first place, for the longest drive for the 8 year old L6 division!" I just realized that this was before there were divisions in compulsories. Thank goodness that one's not on our schedule this year!

 

[jenjean70]

Maybe a few years ago I was a new gym parent and I was excited and the time seemed to fly by. But I swear 5 years ago meets took far less time. Like 4-5 hours and we were done. Today was our first of the year and the session started at 1pm and awards ended at 7:35. That was for 72 6-10's!! REALLY??? Is there no way to get this done faster?? Is there a reason that clubs won't run smaller sessions that last 3 hours and then another one that lasts 3 hours? At least that way the kids would not have 45 mins to an hour between warming up an event and then competing. We talk about the importance of stretching and warming up before every practice to prevent injury, but at a meet they stretch at the beginning, but they the time they walk in and compete, there is no way they are still physically ready to go. Today's meet was about the limit of my 11 year old's patients. If indeed competitions are going to last 5 hours on a regular basis, then we need to start having awards sent home with coaches and given a the next practice. 7 hours is just too long.

I used to think that gymnastics meets were a bit much until I went to a taekwondo tournament.....the last tournament the kids were scheduled to arrive by 9 am (supposed to do forms and spar starting around 10 or 11) and then they didn't compete until 5 PM!!!! You just get there and sit and wait for maybe 5 minutes of competition the entire day. At least with gymnastics you can watch other gymnasts compete and it's interesting and fun to watch. Not so much taekwondo....forms- there is no rhyme nor reason as to why one person beats another because it's personal preference of style as a judge....TK tournaments- Ugh! They are the worst!