Level 9 Westerns (rant!)

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mpkbt

Proud Parent
Anyone have any great insight into why the big change for westerns this year. It makes no sense to me. It seems to help the smaller, weaker regions and hurt the bigger regions. For example, region 2 last year sent about 65 kids to westerns, this year they will send 96. Keep in mind they only had about 105 qualify to regionals last year. As for this year, in region 1, my dd age group has 22 kids and only 6 go. In region 2 there are 7 in her age group and again 6 go. In region 4 there are 8 in the age group and again 6 go. This doesn't seem logical to me. I am just glad we were in region 2 last year so my dd got to experience going!
 
I'm in R5, and I agree with you 100%. It would be much more fair IMO to return to qualifying based on a percentage. It's incredibly difficult to make it out of R5 in certain age groups in L10 (I've seen 37.5s stay home), so why force this onto the 9s?
 
No great insght...it's the same for Easterns and all Regionals too re the groups. Seems like a USAG thing. Some groups are very small and some are quite large but even though the top six go, I think they still have to get a 34 minimum. Doesn't seem equitable based upon performance, other than there is a better spread of age groups.
 
I too saw the huge change in the way girls qualified to Easterns and Westerns...I think it has a lot to do with the economy...If you make 12 age groups and qualify a minimum of 6 from each, that gives you 72 girls going from even the weak regions. I think too that USAG may be trying to make it more uniform like the L10 Nationals but even that system has some age groups with 8 in it and 7 make it and other age groups with 22 in it and only 7 make it. Last year there was a qualifier in one age group that got into regionals with a 34.1 and went to Nationals with the same score because her age group only had 8 girls!!! And like a prior poster said, in stronger regions and age groups , girls with 37s are sitting home....but as I told myself when my daughter first got involved in this sport, it's a judged sport and sometimes things don't seem fair, but it is what it is.
 
They do still have to get a 34. However, I really think the weaker regions will make sure that if they have at least 6 girls in the age group they will all make a 34 even if it is a 34.1! The only way a stronger region can send more kids is if they won that age group at Nationals last year and some other region can't fill all of their spots. If that happens, that region gets to fill the spot.

They changed the age groups from 8 to 16. The weird thing is that the amount of kids in my dd age group only fell by about 8 kids.
 
We are in region 8 and my daughter qualified to easterns last year when they did it the old way. This year she will have a heck of a time qualifing to level 10 nationals because of how it is set up. It seems to me that they should take the percentage of gymnasts from each state depending on how many are at that level to regionals and do the same to qualify for nationals. All of the judges are the same for the entire session so they could base it on score and/or Jr., Sr.
Logically, it isn't fair that a Jr. A girl from Texas gets a 36.9, 8th place, then a girl from Wyoming, gets a 34.2, 1st place. Wyoming girl goes to nationals Texas girl doesn't. I also don't think it is fair amongst the same region, hypothetically, Jr. A 36.9 to qualify Jr. D 35.1.......
OK, I made up all of those numbers for the sake of the argument but it seems like there has got to be a better system...Ideally, you want the best level 9's and 10's to be there and they should.
 
I agree! I think the regions need a revamp. Someone suggested that the judges switch regions for regionals. That way they would not be judging the same kids and would have no vested interest in getting kids to regionals!
 

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