Hmmm, well let me try to play nice with my thoughts.
SO much secrecy. I know at the ranch many qualifiers are held over two days and kids get "do overs", so I call those fake qualifiers, because they are not held in real meet conditions with spectators and within the usual time constraints. Many gymnasts go to the ranch qualifiers at the end of the season when they have not qualified at meets in the real world, I wonder why.
Then there are these many "qualifiers" where scores are posted at the meet, but the only way those scores get out is when spectators post them on twitter or youtube etc.
I honestly think it is all about keeping elite and hopes number high to support the system. As in there are probably really only a small number of girls that really have what it takes to be Americas International Elites. The few that compete at worlds, the O's etc etc. The rest are really just fodder to support the system. TOPs camps, DIC camps are all nice money makers. The elite meets, like Classics etc , they need the numbers to have the meets, they make money of those meets. If they did not have a mass of "qualified" girls they could not have a competition. Though the outcome is relatively obvious from the outset.
It is a big machine with numbers and quotas to fill, each year the elite rules get tweaked to make the machine run more smoothly, and to feed in the right number of girls.
There are many girls training for Hopes and Elite that are beaten by regular JO girls at meets all the time. Does that make sense?
Not sure where I am going with this, but I think the secrecy surrounding qualifying makes the whole thing look a little shady.
To add, this is not hating on the gymnasts, because they work hard and are led by their coaches through the system. But it is hating on a system that leads coaches, and their gymnasts, down a path that is a bit "interesting".
