how should 'cheating' be handled during or after competitions??

[Bobby]

My DD wasn't actually in this comp but some of her friends from her former team were.
It was just a regular invitational, but there were a LOT of girls competing. (NDP) L1 was split into novice (training under 4 hrs pw) and open (training over 4 hrs pw). There was no division according to age.
Anyway, there was a 7 y/o who trains at the HPC representing her club in the novice L1 division. It seemed very unfair since she trains 6 hrs at the HPC plus also trains with her team at her club (no idea how many extra hrs on top of the 6 but obviously 2+) so she obviously should have competed 'open'.
It seemed awfully unfair to all present. Made worse by the fact she was one of the eldest competing against a bunch of 5 and 6 yos. And also because a couple of DD's friends were actually held back from increasing their training hrs until after the comp so they'd remain eligible to compete novice.
And actually she didn't do all that well anyway - I think she got a 6th place out of around 30 girls. But she still took ribbons/honours she wasn't eligible for.
My question is how does everyone think that situation should that have been handled?? Obviously ideally everyone is honest to start ... but what about when they're not??
There was some very disgruntled talk in the beginning about asking her to be disqualified, but thankfully (for the 7 yo who wasn't responsible for it) everyone just zipped it and let her carry on. There was some talk about lodging an objection afterwards, but really is that even possible afterwards? Is there a point?
I'm interested to know if that's highly unusual (one hopes) and how it should be dealt with do you think???

 

[gymgurl]

I know it can be a pain but at level 1 its really not a huge deal, ok if she took home first on every event then maybe it would be a problem. Also, i think if a gym finds itself cheating well, its going to get a bad rep thats all i can say and Happyfacegrin i never knew you were from Australia! Always great to find other australians on this board

 

[Aussie_coach]

It's awful when it happens, you'll find it does happen, this won't be the last time.

I personally think that it is worth lodging an official complaint, because if a club is cheating on the hours for this one girl they probably do it with other girls. It's important to nip it in the bud, or it will continue at future competitions. If it is overlooked the attitude of the club becomes "oh well, they'll let us get away with it" and it happens more and more.

Dealing with it after is probably the best way anyway. It was obviously not the 7 year old who put herself in the wrong division, it was the coaches and parents, so instead of punishing the child by disqualifying her and taking away her awards its best to deal with the source of the problem.

 

[sally]

I thought if you are doing idp you are not allowed to compete ndp

 

[Aussie_coach]

Not if you are competing IDP, but if she is training at the HPC and has not yet begun competing IDP then she is eligible to compete NDP.

 

[sally]

Well isn't that a little unfair. If she is training a higher level and competing a lower level. I am not sure what this girl is learning at the idp but the lowest is idp 1 which is like level 3 and she competes in level 1 novice that doesn't sound right. If they are allowed to compete then it should be the same as what she is training level 3 or even level 2.