How does gym decide on which meet to attend

[roll123]

We have two gyms in our area and they seem to go two different directions on meets. One of the gyms attends bigger, more competitive meets where the other gym attends smaller closer to home meets. How do coaches chose which meets to attend? Any benefits to either?

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[krisnkids]

A lot of factors go into it. Most coaches I've seen do not like doing back to back weekend meets. They also like how some gyms host meets and do not like other gym's ability to host those meets. Case and point; our first gym hosted an extremely popular meet every fall and spring. We only did one day because our owner did not believe in overtaxing her parents. Our meet would be booked well before closing date. When the gym was sold to another gym (combined due to finances) and the old owner no longer had any say, two meets that were very popular amongst the top gyms in the area now became a 'last resort' meet. Other factors would be how its run, capital cup, modified capital cup etc., other commitments, when they are training their kids to peak, preferences for if they like big meets or small meets, what their goals are; if a gym is in it for the fun then why put their girls against the big gyms who require a 38 to score out of a level. As you can see, the list goes on and on.

[Gymmommy71]

It seems like how many meets total you want to do along w/ whether you are okay w/ hotel stays or not dictates the meets as well. Like a gym that likes to do a lot of meets and doesn't want to travel will pretty much hit every local meet. A gym that is okay w/ travel will most likely only do one or two local ones and all the rest will be out of town larger meets.

I do see that in my area if you want real competition, you need to travel a good bit starting with L7. When our optionals go to the same local meets as our compulsary kids, there sometimes aren't even enough girls to make 2 age divisions per level in optionals, and those awards only go out to like 4th or 5th place. This is something else that significantly ups the expenses of gymnastics once you hit optionals in my area.

[gymgal]

The big meets are a necessity for the upper optional girls, particularly if they are looking toward a college gym career. Off a gym only has lower level gymnasts, they merry be more likely to stay local to cut down on the cost and stress. Some gyms split their team with the lower levels staying local and the upper levels traveling.

Personally, I like the larger meets. It gives the girls a true sense of their competition because you almost always come across gyms from other states and usually some very well known gyms, though for the real beginning levels, it can be overkill and very intimidating.

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[gymmomtoo]

Are we talking compulsory or optional? Our compulsory team has to attend qualifying meets (there are 3 each year) so the girls can qualify to the State meet--that's three right there. They attend two local "in-season" invitationals (our own and another), typically one whole-team travel meet (where "travel" means within 3-4 hrs driving distance typically, but we have gone 8 hrs away). Our Optional schedule is more flexible because here optionals can qualify for State at any sanctioned meet. We have the one whole team travel meet, one optional only travel meet, one travel meet for the level 10s and coaches only (although parents have gone occasionally in the past) and 4 or so regular invitationals. Our HC in charge of that looks at timing of meets, cost, whether they have liked the meet in the past and how much attention it will get from college coaches--we have several girls in HS at level 10, so they try to get them all the attention they can at meets.--typically that means going to the larger meets.

[Gymmonkeymomma]

We have the one whole team travel meet, one optional only travel meet, one travel meet for the level 10s and coaches only (although parents have gone occasionally in the past) and 4 or so regular invitationals. Our HC in charge of that looks at timing of meets, cost, whether they have liked the meet in the past and how much attention it will get from college coaches--we have several girls in HS at level 10, so they try to get them all the attention they can at meets.--typically that means going to the larger meets.

Ours is about the same for optionals.
Our compulsories usually go to 3-4 local invitationals, 1-2 sectionals, plus States.