My daughter is in her first year of 9 and bars has been a struggle for her. She won bars at state in level 8 with a 9.8 but she is really struggling with the swing half to overshoot transition. However, she spent most of her training season injured (6 injuries total) so that probably slowed her down quite a bit. When we go to meets, there are definitely a lot of scratches on bars and it appears that a lot of girls struggle with the release. I would say, for my daughter, second is probably floor, then vault and the easiest for her has been beam (although beam seems to make her the most nervous at meets). The event struggles change every season but the jump from level 8 to level 9 has definitely been the worst so far. Level 9 is such a hard level and nothing quite prepares them for that release.