Women I know we want our girls to be able to perform under any conditions...

[GymCMLA]

...but I am disappointed when poor meet planning does affect the girls.

The meet we were at this weekend only had 3 sets of judges. It was 2 sets of equipment for vault, bars and beam. Only one floor and no tumble strip. All floor warm up was between other competitors, so the girls got at best 2 30 second touches. (3 passes total and her 2 leaps and 1 turn) she's a level 6.
Bars and vault were sharing judges, so 2 vaults and 2 bars and one pair of judges. Unfortunately, there was no one from the meet guiding coaches as the when to start warming up, so the girls sat for 35-45 minutes after they warmed up on bars waiting for the judges to get through 2 flights of vault and a flight of bars. Our flight had 6 girls, but many of the other flights at 10-14 girls in them. It is hard to sit and get cold for 35-45 minutes and then hop up and compete.

I know the girls should be able to over come this, but we drove 14 hours for a meet that didn't even have 8 judges, a tumble strip or anyone there coordinating the situation when there were only 6 judges. (it was a mixed level session, levels 4, 5, 6, XG)

Sigh

 

[sce]

Sorry for the hard meet.

That judge situation and lack of direction/coordination on warm-up timing is crazy.

I've never been to a meet that had a tumble strip though, and I've been to meets that had up to level 10.

 

[MILgymFAM]

That stinks when they spend so much time sitting around. Our last meet the flights were huge and the girls sat forever waiting turns. On floor my DD had one set of warm up passes between routines. I have to say though- I have never seen a tumble strip at a meet. It seems really awkward to have two sets of equipment but not two sets of judges. Weird!

 

[GymCMLA]

We have a tumble strip at every meet with 2 sets of equipment unless there are 2 full floors.
CGA coaches spectacular is the big local one that does it with a tumble strip and a floor. You warm up on the strip and get a 30 sec touch on the real floor between competitors. IGI chicago style had the tumble strip as well, for compulsories and 2 full floors for optionals (IIRC).
Circle of stars had 2 full floors.
We usually (always except this one meet) had 4 sets of judges for 2 sets of equipment, they judge flight A while Flight B warms up, the the judges move to the flight B equipment and judge there while A warms up....
This meet had 2 judges doing bars and vault, so 4 flights each rotation...

 

[GymCMLA]

Maybe the semantics are different here; the "tumble strip" I am referring to is a floor warm up area that isn't as big as a full floor, it is narrow and longer usually.

(I am not meaning a tumble tramp or rod floor like in TnT)

 

[Redford]

Sorry to hear, you pay quite a lot for meets, don't you?

I do wish for USA Gymnastics problems though. We just had our second season with spring floor (the above mentioned tumble strip) requirments for the optional league. Compulsory still competes without. Different systems, different standards.

 

[IreneKa]

We don't usually see the "tumble strip". It's usually just one floor, with girls warming up in between the routines. It always confuses me though. Does anyone time those in-between runs? Is there a rule of how many runs can each gymnast make? It's just strange that bars and beam seem to be timed so carefully, while floor usually seems so unorganized.

And I've never seen one sets of judges for two events! Wow! That must have been awful for the waiting girls.

 

[GymCMLA]

I didn't think about the fact this was a travel meet for us, we are a midwest gym and usually compete in IL, IN, KY, OH, TN. This meet was in FLorida, I guess the floor issue might be "normal" for the east coast/Florida region?

 

[Quadqueen]

Stinks that it wasn't moving smoothly and that there were only 3 sets of judges. I have never seen a tumble strip at a meet though - just a floor.

 

[my4buffaloes]

Wow, you traveled a long ways for what was likely a very small meet given how many levels were competing in your session. I think your gym needs to pick bigger meets if they are going that far. We were at a poorly run one this weekend with only 1 set of equipment. Frustrating to say the least! But it wasn't far from home, so not as frustrating as your situation. We almost always have a tumble strip here.

 

[Ali'sMom]

I didn't think about the fact this was a travel meet for us, we are a midwest gym and usually compete in IL, IN, KY, OH, TN. This meet was in FLorida, I guess the floor issue might be "normal" for the east coast/Florida region?

I'm not sure what a tumble strip is, but if it's a separate section to practice tumbling passes on, I've never seen one down here (Florida).
When we have two flights, the gymnasts from the non-flight line up at corners, and take turns criss crossing the floor with their passes until the judge yells "clear".

 

[catou]

That's what I love about our competitions here. They are all organized the same way. We have two sets of equipement: 1 for warming-up and one for competition. We usually don't have 2 full floors, so we have a tumble strip for warming up. We have two panel of judges on each event. This way, there are two categories competition at the same time so all the girls in the same category are judged by the same judge. There's no wait for the gymnasts as the judges calculate while the gymnast in the other category is competing.

 

[mimi]

I didn't think about the fact this was a travel meet for us, we are a midwest gym and usually compete in IL, IN, KY, OH, TN. This meet was in FLorida, I guess the floor issue might be "normal" for the east coast/Florida region?

We are from Florida and I have never seen a tumble strip at a meet in all the years that my daughter has done gymnastics. I will say that the vast majority of the meets we attend are well-run, so I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience. One time at one of the smaller meets we went to years ago there was a similar judging problem, but that was because a judge was sick.

I will say that it is pretty commonplace to have a very short warmup on floor that consists of doing a few leaps and turns as a group, and then the tumbling is done between other gymnasts' routines if there are two flights.

Was this a large meet or a small meet? In Florida right now it is considered "off season" for compulsories competing USAG as their state meet happens in December so their main season is fall. Maybe that is why there were so many levels mixed together in the session.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Interesting, almost every single comp we have has one floor only and no tumble strip. Out kids only every get a few tumbles and a few leaps.

I think some times there is an obsession in gymnastics about excessive preparation.

 

[gwenmom]

We don't usually see the "tumble strip". It's usually just one floor, with girls warming up in between the routines. It always confuses me though. Does anyone time those in-between runs? Is there a rule of how many runs can each gymnast make? It's just strange that bars and beam seem to be timed so carefully, while floor usually seems so unorganized.

And I've never seen one sets of judges for two events! Wow! That must have been awful for the waiting girls.

No Tumble Strip here either. The girls warm up as explained above. And yes it can get cry confusing.

We had an hour wait for beam once. It was horrible. And the girls did not do well.

 

[GymCMLA]

This was billed to us as a big meet, run by a known organization that runs them in Manhattan and SF as well. There was to be AAU, USAG and USAG TnT all at this large meet. TnT only had 2 teams, one cancelled so our TnT team was told 10 days prior that they were canceling that part. (My DS does TnT and his coach found a meet in Lakeland FL since people already had non-refundable travel plans) There were no AAU.

Up here we get floor warm up based on level (1:30 min for each girl just like vault bars and beam) on the tumble strip and then a 30 second touch on the "real floor". So our girls were surprised by the chaos of this warm up.

Our head coach picked this meet. We expressed concerns when there were only a couple teams on the "hold our spot" lost and that the meet hadn't signed a contract with the venue 6 weeks before. But HC was adamant, this was a good meet with a good host. (But then she took the level 8s to the SJSS instead and pulled them from this meet) It was a big disappointment. We do one travel meet a year. If NYC elite hadn't come with their big team, I think they would have cancelled the meet. >75% of the gymnasts there were form NYC elite.

 

[gymnast-mac]

I'm not sure what a tumble strip is, but if it's a separate section to practice tumbling passes on, I've never seen one down here (Florida).
When we have two flights, the gymnasts from the non-flight line up at corners, and take turns criss crossing the floor with their passes until the judge yells "clear".

We do the same thing on floor. My gym mostly competes in the east-coast area and there has never been a tumble strip at a meet. But the rest of your situation sounds uncommon/bad organization.

 

[coachmolly]

We have been to 1 meet in recent years with a tumble strip. They had a timed warm-up there based on # of girls and then 2- 30 sec. touches in between routines. I thought it was a bit excessive as far as number of turns each girl got. Though usually they get more than 2- 30 sec. touches at a meet with only one floor (I'm curious what the official rule is on that, because I think our HC might push the limits).
I'm not sure what the best way would have been to run a meet with only 2 sets of judges. Any idea how many kids were in the session?
Frustrating that you paid so much (as I'm sure it was a pricey entry fee and likely large admission fee) and traveled so far for what was more like a small local meet. I wonder if the meet had been run poorly in the past which led to the small turnout this year?

 

[wnl256]

Our head coach picked this meet. We expressed concerns when there were only a couple teams on the "hold our spot" lost and that the meet hadn't signed a contract with the venue 6 weeks before. But HC was adamant, this was a good meet with a good host. (But then she took the level 8s to the SJSS instead and pulled them from this meet)

If it makes you feel any better, Charleston Cup (the SJSS meet that I think your level 8s went to) had a "tumble strip" but it was pretty useless. It didn't have anywhere near the same spring action as a real floor does. Our girls had a very hard time warming up on it. They might as well not even bothered doing their tumbling passes as it was much harder than a regular floor. They still got touch warmups on the floor before competing.

I've seen these "tumble strips" regularly at meets with two flights. In fact the only time I didn't see one was at a Florida meet, Edgewater Classic. There the girls had an experience similar to what you describe.

But I've never been at a meet with fewer than 8 judges. Sounds to me like the meet director did a very poor planning job.

 

[aerials]

Wow, all of our modified cup meets have a tumble strip.