WAG Required to go out 50%?

[Gymmommy71]

That is crazy for a kid to get a medal on a scratched event...lol...talk about making medals meaningless! Usually I see meets reduce the award count when there are scratchers - like if there are 20 kids who compete floor, 10 will get medals, but then when there are 2 scratchers in the bars event, only 9 medals will be awarded cause there were only 18 in the pool... My DD is smart enough to figure out the true meaning of each medal though - like she has a little section on medal hanging thing (which is like a quilt hanger) for the ones that are "special"....there are only like 5-6 in there .

 

[clark222]

My dd competes AAU so the rules are a little different. It seems to be all over the place at meets. We have been to meets where they only award out to 3rd place and we have been to others that place everyone out. Whoever said it above is right, even the very littlest of kids can figure out they are dead last. Who thinks that is making anyone feel good about themselves?!? My dd has never been last, but she has been something like 15 out of 18 and it hurts. I would rather they just placed out to third (or sixth for bigger meets) at all meets even though my dd is one of the kids that would only get a medal very occasionally. I think it would be far more special to her.

Even stranger are the team placings. For some of our meets, your team is only in the "team running" if your team pays an extra fee. So your team might be "first place" but is only first because you are the only team to have paid the fee. Very misleading. Either have team placement or don't.

 

[MaryA]

Yes, I think it's pretty common to have to pay a "team fee" to be entered as a team. I kind of thought that the only reason it was "optional" is because some some teams don't have enough girls to make a team. If team is the top 3 or 4 scores on each event, and you don't have 3 or 4 gymnasts, then you shouldn't have to pay the team fee. I agree though that if you have enough girls to make a team, you should be paying the team fee. I'm not sure if I've ever been to a meet where the team that "should" have won didn't pay the team fee. In general, teams want to bring home those trophies, so they pay the fees.

 

[Quadqueen]

I'm with MaryA...I'm pretty sure all teams pay the team fee if they have enough kids to "make" a team? Team awards here are top three scores.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

Another Ontario perspective. At invitationals, groups are usually pretty small and they usually award the top 10 or so. Top 3 get medals and the rest get ribbons.

At provincial qualifiers, Top 3 get medals and ribbons go to 8th place. Doesn't matter how many are in a group, I've seen as few as 1 or 2 and as many as 20.

I am curious, if it's gold, silver and bronze for 1, 2 and 3, what colours are the other medals that are being given out? Here it is standard ribbon colour, 4th - yellow, 5th - green, 6th - burgundy, 7th - orange, 8th - light blue.

 

[hawaii_gymnast]

^^^^ Similar there as western Canada, top 8-10 places, never more, occasionally top 6. Again top 3 medals, the rest get ribbons. Occasionally 1st gets a trophy. Even if there are 40 girls only top 8 or however many. And when I went to the states for a few meets they did 50-100% awards and gave bronze to everyone after 3rd.

 

[krisnkids]

In California we had to pay the team fee. Here in Kentucky it seems like you are entered in team no matter what. Personally I think team awards are kind of silly when you have a team of 4 girls going up against a team of 20, but so be it. Some meets we went to in California and the ones we hosted you had to designate which 3 girl's scores would count towards the team award.

 

[MaryA]

I am curious, if it's gold, silver and bronze for 1, 2 and 3, what colours are the other medals that are being given out? Here it is standard ribbon colour, 4th - yellow, 5th - green, 6th - burgundy, 7th - orange, 8th - light blue.

Sometimes you get gold and then silver, with the rest being bronze. More often than not, though, they're just all the same. Sometimes there is a sticker on the back that says what the medal was for (event, place, and/or score). At the meet DD went to this weekend, there was a sticker on the back of each medal, but they weren't filled out. We had to write in the info at home.

 

[Krystan]

As to girls leaving before awards if they went out fewer places, I saw a very angry mother drag her crying teen (13-ish) out before awards yesterday. I couldn't hear what was being said, so it's very possible that there was a non-CGM explanation, but the way it looked was that the mom was unhappy with her daughter's performance that day, knew she wasn't going to place, and made her leave. I hope that wasn't the case.

That's pretty terrible! I feel sorry for that poor girl if she was kept out of the award ceremony because her mom didn't like her performance. Geesh, why doesn't she try tumbling on a beam sometime?

I completely agree that the awards can get out of hand, especially at some of these invitationals. In-gym meets tend to be reasonable around here, with just the top 3 or so, but it's almost like the invitationals are all trying to out-do each other with awards/trophies. Most go at least 50%. One of them did 100% AA which I find pretty mean when you have someone in 16th place out of 16. Kids aren't dumb; they know that means "last"! I'm sorry, but if I'm in the bottom 50%, let's just leave it at that! My daughter loves the trophies and medals, even though I feel like it's over the top. The ones that have the event name on them are great keepsakes I guess. We went to one this year that I loved because there were no bulky trophies. Everyone got one medal (they didn't rank, just participation medals), and then for each event and AA, the top 50% got a little pin to put on the ribbon holding the medal that said your place in the event (1st Place Floor, 4th Place Vault, etc). Some kids had no pins, some had 5, but everyone had the medal.

So, yes, I think the 50% (sometimes 80-100) thing gets way over the top by the time you're attending your 5th invitational of the year. Enough is enough. It almost makes states anti-climactic.

 

[MaryA]

We went to one this year that I loved because there were no bulky trophies. Everyone got one medal (they didn't rank, just participation medals), and then for each event and AA, the top 50% got a little pin to put on the ribbon holding the medal that said your place in the event (1st Place Floor, 4th Place Vault, etc). Some kids had no pins, some had 5, but everyone had the medal.

I love this!

 

[skschlag]

Everyone got one medal (they didn't rank, just participation medals), and then for each event and AA, the top 50% got a little pin to put on the ribbon holding the medal that said your place in the event (1st Place Floor, 4th Place Vault, etc). Some kids had no pins, some had 5, but everyone had the medal.

OUr state/regionals do something similar. Each child gets a plaque for participation. If you place on something, you get a little plaquard that goes on the plaque that states what you placed in. Some kids have none, some have 7. At states you also get one for regional qualifier. It is pretty cool and D loves his hanging on the walls!

 

[Gymchick]

Where I live (va) it is the number of girls devided by three I think so at your DDs meet. It would have gone out to around tenth place

 

[gymmomtoo]

Our state suggests 50% but doesn't mandate it and even at State they only go out 10 places--and that's not 50% in most cases. And the chicken dance?? We do hand stand contests here