Parents Age brackets at meets

[nycgymmom]

Did USAG make changes to the age divisions at meets? I am in region 6 and all of this seasons meets have had only 3 divisions, child, junior and senior. Were as before it had by age 6-8 and on.

 

[Mrs. Puma]

As far as I know, in USAG the meet director can break it up however they want (I'm learning in USAIGC there are stricter rules with respect to age groups). I am in Region 6 as well and they way every JO/Xcel meet Puma Jr has ever done is to line the birthdays up in order and chop them into even-ish groups and call them Child A, ect. I think that more fair. If they did 6-8, 9-10 ect, some groups could be much larger/smaller than others. Again, I don't believe there's a set rule on how to do it.

 

[SMH]

Region 5- all of our meets except one have been Child/Junior/Senior based on birth date. The only meet that wasn't was the Judges Cup where my daughter was in the '6 and under' category.

 

[Seeker]

The age groups at meets are created by the Meet Director and are dependent on the age/level of the participants. It can vary widely from meet to meet, but there is generally an effort to make somewhat equally sized groups. Whether they're called Ch A, Ch B, Jr 1, etc or Apples, Oranges and Pears is discretionary and different at every meet.

 

[nycgymmom]

Thanks everyone. I am finding that since only 3 categories are available some groups are bigger than others. The child group always is the largest and all others are smaller

 

[MeetDirector]

Exactly what @Seeker said. The "age divisions" or award groups as I like to call them, are completely under the control of the meet director. There are absolutely no limits on how many groups there can be. Award groups are a numbers game, plain and simple; how many awards does a meet want to give out per group and work back from there. The only groups specified by rule are for level 9 and 10 regionals and westerns/nationals.

@nycgymmom , since you are seeing the differences like you are, it means the meet director doesn't know how, or doesn't care, to set the meet up properly. Heck, I have even reset award groups on the day of the meet to rebalance the groups after a large number of scratches.

Good luck.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

We are in NY and most of our meets the age groups are split pretty evenly. Including if a level goes into multiple sessions.
I would say if there is an exception it's that the older girls have less kids.

 

[CTMOM]

I'm aslo region 6 and have seen a few with 6-8. I know the Judges Cup did.

 

[raenndrops]

Thanks everyone. I am finding that since only 3 categories are available some groups are bigger than others. The child group always is the largest and all others are smaller

In my experience, the younger age groups are less likely to scratch after the deadline than those in older age groups.