How long is the average gymnastics meet session?

[agymmom]

I'm just wondering how ours compares. At my dd's next meet it will be 4 hours from the time she walks in until the end of awards. It's a traditional format and I always feel like she's mentally done before her last event, if not earlier. Is this a normal session length?

 

[MaryA]

Yeah, I usually assume a meet will last 4 hours. Sometimes you get to be pleasantly surprised and it's shorter. I have been at a meet for as long as 7 hours, but that was a really poorly run one where the preceding sessions ran long so DD's meet started about 2 hours late and then lasted 5 hours. Glad we never went back to that one!

 

[thefellowsmom]

Her meet yesterday was 4 hours from warmup to awards. It seemed longer though because it was so chaotic. I think they did a good job of keeping it going on schedule and keeping everything straight. It definitely had the potential to go terribly wrong. Just too many people in too small of a space. The space was beautiful though.

I definitely felt that by the end she had lost her focus. She said she was fine, but I could see the fatigue written all over her face and it showed in her routines. The last meet we were at, we were in an out in 3 hours. It was awesome! I wish they were all that painless. I'm pretty sure that this weeks meet is more of the norm though.

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

4 hours is typical. It seems like a lot, but it's shorter than most of our practices! The difference is, of course, you don't have a lot of time to warm up each event at a meet, and sometimes you need a longer warm-up if you're tired. And obviously you want to be at 100% at meets. I think my first two events are never as good as my last two, just because I get so nervous. After the first couple I'm too tired to be nervous! However, I do often get tired by the end. And awards can drag on and on depending on how many groups and teams are there.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

too long.....

 

[lhmom]

Amen to that. And sometimes, the awards seem longer than the actual competition, lol!

 

[flipper's fan]

4 hours- it's universal

 

[shelovestoflip]

The well run ones around here can be about 3 hours....a few weeks ago we had an 8am check in and we were in the car on the way home at 11!

I think I have read on our State's website that there is a limit to the # of gymnasts per session (I could be dreaming that, but I do think I read it!)

It seems that most meets have about 60-70 girls. So I guess if you figure 1 1/2 min per floor routine (Level 7) with a minute in between...2 1/2 minx70 gymnasts is (hmmm, mental math here...) 175 minutes?! So, I guess that is about 3 hours. Then, awards.

OK, maybe it is 4 hours!

But I did like that last meet.....and the fact that it was a mere 25 minutes from my house, well, geez, I actually had a day ahead of me!!

 

[agymmom]

fellowsmom - yes, we've had a couple of meets that were 3 hours at level 3 and it was so much better. My dd on practices for 2 hours, so she's not used to having to focus for 4.

If 4 hours is universal, I guess I better just get used to to it.