Gilling is a nice company. I met the owner. She gave us a new leo and didn't ever pick up the old that didn't work because the sizing was off. I don't think Gilling uses Swarowski though, worth checking.
Gymgal, I learned a some things and can chip in. The old gym trained a few girls with high goals in mind. And that was it, they only trained those girls who fit their idea of the end goal. The rest of the team trained as a separate entity with little (if any) monitoring from HC. HC stated on...
Ask your dd if she thinks that the coach still believes in her. If the answer is 'no', it is the reason and a deal breaker. Does she complain about the coach also? Can be that things ran their course and change is needed.
I wonder if she changed bar setting at the time of the move to FIG. If so, that is pretty amazing. She was about 16 y.o. then. Hard to believe it would be possible.
Ashton was lvl 10 by age 11, did 5 years of lvl 10 before turning Elite as a specialist. Have there been other Elite specialists with 1 or 2 events to compete?
Whenever I saw sandbagging it was a matter of resources, i.e. no room on optional team or no experience to train higher levels. Sometimes they cannot accomidate all talent. I am not saying it is right. I noticed those dominating gyms have very large teams(the ones I can think of) and limited...
I wonder if scoring system will change once 9.8 and above become common occurrence and more and more gymnasts fit into that narrow slot. Perhaps judging will have to become more stringent at some point, or scores may have to go above 10 to cover wider range of deductions, difficulties...
I believe unofficial defenition of sandbagging is not moving up by repeating levels so they can dominate the podium. If they move 1 level a season it is hardly sandbagging.
there is also mental aspect. Some people are not ready to move 2-3 levels in one season. Or...that particular girl...
Andrea's sister is her current coach, not her parents. Assuming that the sister is the only coach, perhaps it is not enough. Are the parents not involved? She is a great gymnast indeed.
If he is the owner and someone manages the gym for him, perhaps there is no concern.
If he is the manager, someone has to run the business; potentially there won't be a sight of him for a long time. Obviously his interests are somewhere else.
Is Aly his biggest and only accomplishment lately...