We just returned from my 2nd year L7's this season's first meet (Judges Cup). I was looking forward to seeing something new and exciting due to the latest changes to the optionals requirements and scoring. Boy, was it an eye opener!
I have never seen so many 5s and 6s in all the years since I became a gym parent. The new requirements and scoring system really made a difference to the results. All of a sudden all these routines that received decent scores last year were no longer adequate. In my daughter's age group, AA replacement started at 32+ and only the top 2 or 3 got high 35s. There were also a lot of creative compositions in the routines to make up for the otherwise missing or inadequate elements.
So, not to gloat
, everything that I speculated to have happened did happen. Strong performers remained strong (with a slight drop in score overall). Middle of the line gymnasts who did the old minimum to score high is no longer receiving scores that were excessively high. The ones suffered the most were the gymnasts who were just getting by. Their scores easily dropped 4 to 5 point in AA.
If the objective was to narrow the window for each level and reduce the overlap of adjacent levels, judging solely from this meet USAG have successfully done their job. Now, gymnasts are performing where they should be. I am not a big fan of the "scoring out" thing in general except for the few who deserve to accelerate through the ranks. The new system should put a tighter control over the general progression approach and we should see a more consistent approach implemented by all gyms.
Comments, anyone?
I have never seen so many 5s and 6s in all the years since I became a gym parent. The new requirements and scoring system really made a difference to the results. All of a sudden all these routines that received decent scores last year were no longer adequate. In my daughter's age group, AA replacement started at 32+ and only the top 2 or 3 got high 35s. There were also a lot of creative compositions in the routines to make up for the otherwise missing or inadequate elements.
So, not to gloat
, everything that I speculated to have happened did happen. Strong performers remained strong (with a slight drop in score overall). Middle of the line gymnasts who did the old minimum to score high is no longer receiving scores that were excessively high. The ones suffered the most were the gymnasts who were just getting by. Their scores easily dropped 4 to 5 point in AA.If the objective was to narrow the window for each level and reduce the overlap of adjacent levels, judging solely from this meet USAG have successfully done their job. Now, gymnasts are performing where they should be. I am not a big fan of the "scoring out" thing in general except for the few who deserve to accelerate through the ranks. The new system should put a tighter control over the general progression approach and we should see a more consistent approach implemented by all gyms.
Comments, anyone?
