WAG 2017 Las Vegas invitational

[GymBeeMom]

My DD is a first year Level 10 and is trying to qualify HOPEs. She made her compulsory HoPEs score and her first level 10 meets have been respectable but not mind blowing awesome. She has been working a lot of skills for HOPEs that have not been put into her 10 routines. She will try them out at one meet before her HOPEs optionals. Soooo, yes the girls who aren't scoring at the top of Level 10 may still be quite ready to compete for HOPEs....scores don't always tell the whole story. That being said, there is a lot more confidence in being ready for HOPEs optionals if you're consistent in your skills and can compete solid routines in JO.

 

[DefiniteMaybe]

So, in layman's terms: in level 10, for the most part, 10.0 is the highest score you can get. So, if your goal was to score well in level 10, once you have a 10.0 start value, you probably wouldn't compete extra skills that would only serve as risks and opportunities to get deductions. So you might have maybe 4-5 risky skills in a level 10 routine, and you might still have a 10.0 start value, so that's your routine. Simple as that. Why add extra skills that you don't need if you already have your 10.0 start value? Fewer skills means fewer opportunities for deductions.

However, in hopes and elite, there's no top out score. So the more difficulty and connection value you compete, the higher your start value. So you might compete 8-9 risky skills. Maybe more. You might still get deductions on those skills, but you also have added start value, so it's more worth the risk to add more and more risky skills in the elite world. So maybe your start value in hopes is a 14.9. You get deductions on several skills and still maybe end up with a 12.9. Not a bad score at an elite qualifier. Here's where it gets tricky: you might compete the exact same difficult routine in a level 10 meet to get competition experience with your Hopes routines. However, in level 10, you are at a 10.0 start value regardless of all the extra difficulty. You don't get extra credit. There's only debit from the 10.0. So, with the same deductions that you received at the hopes meet, but only starting with a maximum of 10.0 score, maybe you get an 8.0 even for a good routine. If you dropped some of the skills in your routine, you would also drop potential deductions. So competing maybe 3 fewer difficult skills at a level 10 meet might get you a point or more higher score simply because you had less for the judges to deduct from.

Clear as mud?

There's more to it than that, but maybe that explains a little bit of the difference?

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

Then you think they would do that with all the other meet scores too eh. I am more curious as to why so many sessions for elite. More medals maybe.

I don't believe placements are given for the Compulsory score/competition. I think the small session might be to accommodate judging needs. If you can only get four qualified judges then you run sessions with two rotations/squads and then the judges pair up and do two apparatus each.

is there usually pretty good correlation between Hopes 12/13 scores and recent level 10 scores? I notice some girls qualifying the Classics in Hopes 12/13 that hadn't done that great in recent level 10 meets

I don't think scoring poorly in JO is always a reflection on elite scoring potential, but I am sure many high scoring level Tens could probably qualify based on their excellent execution even if they were missing a requirement or two. Madison Kocian was missing requirements her first year of elite, it did not stop her from qualifying through to nationals.

 

[tomtnt]

Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot of sense. so if one had no elite aspirations, why bother learning/competing DTY instead of just a full? Why full-ins instead of just double pikes? Seems like unnecessary risk to heath and scores!

So, in layman's terms: in level 10, for the most part, 10.0 is the highest score you can get. So, if your goal was to score well in level 10, once you have a 10.0 start value, you probably wouldn't compete extra skills that would only serve as risks and opportunities to get deductions. So you might have maybe 4-5 risky skills in a level 10 routine, and you might still have a 10.0 start value, so that's your routine. Simple as that. Why add extra skills that you don't need if you already have your 10.0 start value? Fewer skills means fewer opportunities for deductions.

However, in hopes and elite, there's no top out score. So the more difficulty and connection value you compete, the higher your start value. So you might compete 8-9 risky skills. Maybe more. You might still get deductions on those skills, but you also have added start value, so it's more worth the risk to add more and more risky skills in the elite world. So maybe your start value in hopes is a 14.9. You get deductions on several skills and still maybe end up with a 12.9. Not a bad score at an elite qualifier. Here's where it gets tricky: you might compete the exact same difficult routine in a level 10 meet to get competition experience with your Hopes routines. However, in level 10, you are at a 10.0 start value regardless of all the extra difficulty. You don't get extra credit. There's only debit from the 10.0. So, with the same deductions that you received at the hopes meet, but only starting with a maximum of 10.0 score, maybe you get an 8.0 even for a good routine. If you dropped some of the skills in your routine, you would also drop potential deductions. So competing maybe 3 fewer difficult skills at a level 10 meet might get you a point or more higher score simply because you had less for the judges to deduct from.

Clear as mud?

There's more to it than that, but maybe that explains a little bit of the difference?

 

[duyetanh]

According to my friend who watched the elite comps, they didn't give out many medals.

 

[GYM0M]

Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot of sense. so if one had no elite aspirations, why bother learning/competing DTY instead of just a full? Why full-ins instead of just double pikes? Seems like unnecessary risk to heath and scores!

Goals change. Aspirations change. What if the gymmie or gymmies in question decide they might like to try elite? It's much easier to be ahead of the game than it is to play catch up. Just my thoughts......

 

[GYM0M]

Then you think they would do that with all the other meet scores too eh. I am more curious as to why so many sessions for elite. More medals maybe.

The sessions were more filled on paper. Many of the competing gymnasts were also competing JO or up for awards at the banquet. The compulsory sessions looked full, on paper at least. I guess accommodating different schedules = more sessions.

 

[wallflower]

Then you think they would do that with all the other meet scores too eh. I am more curious as to why so many sessions for elite. More medals maybe.

Qualifiers are so different than JO meets. You could never have the number of kids per session you have in JO. The warm up format is long and drawn out. The scores take forever to come up. There is a lot of waiting around.

And medals....yeah very few medals. Definitely not about the medals. Awards are the quickest part of the meet. Pretty much don't expect any medals. In JO one event for one age group equals or surpasses the total medals given out for the entire qualifier. Seriously. Nobody there is thinking medals.

 

[wallflower]

According to my friend who watched the elite comps, they didn't give out many medals.

Definitely not!

 

[GYM0M]

Nobody there is thinking medals.

This statement gives me hope that I wasn't the only one subtracting the score from the magic number and dividing by the remaining events, lol!

My DD likes her medals, but she is MUCH more proud of her score!

 

[Jenny]

Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot of sense. so if one had no elite aspirations, why bother learning/competing DTY instead of just a full? Why full-ins instead of just double pikes? Seems like unnecessary risk to heath and scores!

Because they can and they enjoy challenging themselves. I see a lot of amazing level 10 gymnasts who have reached a start value of 10 by the time they are 13 or 14. That is a long time to wait to go to college doing the same skills in their routines. People like to keep learning and feel they are progressing in whatever they do. And things do change in college. A FTY is not a start value of 10 anymore you need a one and a half. So all those athletes who learned a full and then stopped will be kicking themselves.

 

[coachmolly]

You also have to remember there are multiple ways to get to elite. So there are the kids who having been doing TOPs/HOPEs/Developmental camps since level 4/5 and been working with the goal of elite in mind. They compete JO, and typically do very well, but that isn't their end goal and therefore not their priority. They develop routines based on what the coaches suggest at developmental camps and what's going to help them most to break into the elite ranks, not necessarily what will place them well in JO levels. Sometimes that translates to placing well in JO, sometimes it doesn't.
There are also a number of kids who just climb up through the JO levels, they get to level 9/10 as 12-13 year olds and do amazingly well (because JO and competing well in JO meets has been their focus) and decide to give elite a try. So looking back at rankings, you'll see these kids getting top scores at almost every big invitational they enter, qualifying to Nastia Cup, etc. Some of these kids make the transition pretty seamlessly and go on to rock elite, others struggle to adapt to FIG bar settings and all of the intricacies of elite and end up back in level 10 (usually doing outstandingly well and being top recruits in their class).
And some kids are just fantastic at level 10 and fantastic at elite, so just looking at past scores isn't really a good indicator of what a gymnast is capable of or whether or not they belong in elite or how well they will do as elites.

 

[Seeker]

Qualifiers are so different than JO meets. You could never have the number of kids per session you have in JO. The warm up format is long and drawn out. The scores take forever to come up. There is a lot of waiting around.

And medals....yeah very few medals. Definitely not about the medals. Awards are the quickest part of the meet. Pretty much don't expect any medals. In JO one event for one age group equals or surpasses the total medals given out for the entire qualifier. Seriously. Nobody there is thinking medals.

The maximum # of athletes per session in an Elite qualifier is quite a bit lower than JO:
- Optional can have a max of 32
- Compulsory can have a max of 40
- the Opt & Comp sessions must be held on consecutive days (so an athlete could do both)

Also agree that this is def not about the medals as they only place Top 3 I believe. People go to qualify, but also for experience in the hopes they will qualify the following season. It is a totally different format, so it is good to have some experience with it. I think a lot of kids continue a parallel path with JO for two reasons -- one, they may not qualify so don't want to give up a whole competitive season and two, they need the chance to get some competitive experience with bigger skills, which they do by competing JO.

 

[2gymmies]

Also, they didn't have flight a and b with 2 sets of equipment. One group on each event and one set of equipment. Each rotation had about 7 kids (I assume some scratches). It was traditional format where they warmed up all 4 events and then competed all 4 with just a 30 second touch. My dd says it's basically doing a cold routine, especially on beam and floor. Teams don't get to choose what order kids compete, it's predetermined like regionals or nationals for JO. And like someone else said, scores take longer to come up.

 

[bogwoppit]

Of course for us from other countries, top 3 is all they ever award medals to at meets.

I thought I saw they had mixed age groups in each session?

 

[duyetanh]

This statement gives me hope that I wasn't the only one subtracting the score from the magic number and dividing by the remaining events, lol!

My DD likes her medals, but she is MUCH more proud of her score!

How did she do?

 

[duyetanh]

Of course for us from other countries, top 3 is all they ever award medals to at meets.

I thought I saw they had mixed age groups in each session?

There were...but the awards were more of an afterthought. What was more important was who qualified.

 

[Ali'sMom]

Another thing about correlation of scores from Level 9 or 10, versus HOPES - I know of a girl who used her HOPES Optionals routines for Level 9, to keep in practice of those routines, rather than two separate groups of routines. If I have it correctly - some of the skills she uses in those routines she gets dinged on in Level 9, because they're higher, or such. But also - some of the needed level 9 skills might not be in her HOPES routines. She knows going into the level 9 meets that this will be reflected in her scores. Her execution could be perfect, but because of extra, or missing, skills, she will have deductions.

Her mom just said recently how she's going to get nit-picked at her level 10 meet next week. Yet she just did phenomenal in Vegas.

 

[Ali'sMom]

Her mom just said recently how she's going to get nit-picked at her level 10 meet next week. Yet she just did phenomenal in Vegas.

Didn't mean "nit-picked", as to me that implies getting "tenthed to death".

 

[Seeker]

Of course for us from other countries, top 3 is all they ever award medals to at meets.

I thought I saw they had mixed age groups in each session?

Of course -- in any given category they will schedule teams together, regardless of age group. Not doing so would be a nightmare for the coaching staff and would result in even more sessions with smaller numbers of competitors. Judging would also be an issue as there are a limited number of judges with the proper rating to judge elite.

And a little word regarding the posting of scores. As mentioned upthread, the elite scoring is different than JO and requires different reports. The elite portion of the meet is also completely separate from the JO portion, so they will likely never be posted together. Maybe, but it would be rare and the timing a bit different. Elite results also go through an additional layer of scrutiny/vetting than JO scores before they are finalized. There is no rule that requires the scores to be posted online at all. There is a requiement that the scores are provided to USAG and be available to the coaches, but to the general public, no.