Age Groups for Competition

[BeamQueen17]

I have noticed that it seems the older you are, the easier it is to win, essentially. I am a Level 7 with one teammate. She is 12 and I'm 14. I usually outscore her, but at a meet a recently she got a 9.1 on bars and I got an 8.8. Then, I got first and she didn't place at all. It occurred to me looking back that the younger age groups do seem to have more fierce competition. Is it just me or is it always like that?

 

[All Chalked Up]

Not always. I'm thirteen (almost 14) and I'll be competing in one of the stiffest age groups in the province. Some of the girls have AA's of 58! It's also one of the smallest age groups.

Teens also tend to quit gymnastics when they hit 13 & 14 years old, so that might be why the younger girl has more competition then you do.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yep. the older you are the less there of you at any level here in the US.

 

[Gymdad2]

what dunno says plus I have noticed that once you get to L7 and up in the younger age groups, only the best have moved up that far. The others are still 4s and 5s and 6s.

 

[Gymdaddio]

DD just competed Lvl 6 district meet. Results were given from the highest age groups first and the youngest last. The scores went up every time they went to the next younger group.

 

[Gymdad2]

looks like my theory works for L6 too.

 

[Empowered]

Please pardon the somewhat rambling post below... lol

Where we live, the vast majority of L6 kids are 10-11 years old. The number of girls who won't turn 10 by the time we have states here is less than 30. A few of the 8-9 year olds are the phenoms. So here to get a "youngest" age group they take the 17-18 youngest kids regardless of age and what ends up happening numbers wise is this:

8 yrs - 0-2 kids
9 yrs - 3-4 kids
10 yrs - 10-12 kids
11 yrs - 2-4 kids

Then in the higher up age groups you have the rest of the older 11s and 12s and then the 13+ group. Here, most of the kids that are still in L6 at 12 & 13 are the lifetime compulsory kids, no offense intended at all, but a lot of those kids have no intention of making the jump to optionals. The scores go down quite a bit as you jump divisions. What would be 8th in the youngest group would be 4th in the middle group and 2nd in the oldest group on a typical day. But really it isn't that the youngest group is so much more talented, it's that the division is pulling so many ages all into the same group AND it's all of the ideal competition ages to boot making it appear to score so much higher.

When you hit States though and these groups start getting broken down to 13 kids in a 2 to 5 month span, you see the youngest groups 7-8s and 9s may have a few super high scorers (the phenoms)... but the 5 groups of 10 year olds and 5 groups of 11 year olds are where the really big scores tend to hit.

This trend seems to hold true for the 7's as well here. At a typical meet the "youngest group" (7-11yrs) often scores the highest but at States it's the older 10s, 11s and young 12s that pack the really big punch, not the 7-9 year olds (except again, for those adorable little phenoms).

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

The older age groups tend to have fewer people in them, and older gymnasts often can't dedicate as much time to practicing as school gets more intense. Additionally, there are physiological differences that can make it harder for girls post-puberty to get high scores (especially in compulsories where you can't tailor your routine). That's why we have age groups, after all!

On the flip side, a lot of older girls around level 7/8 are there because they can't get one event up to the next level (usually bars). They may have been competing that level for a long time and have a lot of experience, and thus get higher scores. I have two friends who competed L7 for 3 years because they couldn't get their bars for L8. They dominated state! Another friend competed L7 for 5 years due to several serious injuries and a low time commitment. She also won a lot of stuff. It really just depends on the meet.