WAG Level 4 groupings

[Gymbugs]

Hello all! I have a daughter who just turned seven and is competing her first meet as a level 4 in a week. I was thinking this might be a harder year than last year since there are less seven year olds at this level and shes one of the youngest of them all. Last year, there were three other six year olds on her level 3 team besides her and she was the only one they moved up. Can anyone tell me from experience what the age spans are for the youngest level 4 groupings? I'm just curious...is it a larger age range since theres less young ones?

 

[3rd_time_around]

It depends on the meet. Level 4 is ages 7 and up, as old as 15-16. every meet, they take the total number of level 4 entrants, divide it by the number of age groups, and divide them accordingly. So if there’s 80 competitors and 4 age groups, every 20 kids is an age group. Jr. A would be the youngest level 7 and counting up 20 spots in ascending age order. Could be 7-9 years old in Jr. A.

 

[gymgal]

This is going to be dependent on which meets you go to. Some areas/meets list the girls by birthday and then split them into evenly into however many age groups they want. Other meets will stick to the actual age groups (ex all 6/7 yr olds in one group, 8yr olds in another, and so on, regardless of how many girls are in each group). In these meets, you could have one group with 4 girls and another with 20. Size of the meets will also factor in.

As far as the level being harder due to her being one of the youngest, that is not necessarily true. Disparity in age can be an issue for things like increased body awareness but this typically isn't a problem for age groups spanning only a couple of years, which you will likely have in the lower levels unless you are at a really small meet.

 

[2G1B]

Starting in L4, from what I have always seen, the younger age groups tend to be the bigger scoring age groups. I think it is that those tend to be the more naturally talented kids.

 

[Greatlakesmom]

At the level four meet we were at last weekend, seven, eight and nine-year-olds were in one age category together. The gymnasts were not divided equally but strictly by age. Last year, it seemed many of the level four meets we attended combined seven and eight-year-olds. Sometimes they were also with nine-year-olds.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

varies year after year and state by state. no answer possible. Our own state varies drastically each year

 

[CuriousCate]

Yep, as per all the replies above, it will vary. My older DD was also 7 on Level 4 and at some of the bigger meets, kids were only up to one year older than her, but some of the smaller meets, she was in an age group with 10 year olds. We could never ever tell. I'll tell you that the meets where her age group was closer in age to her own, were the super duper competitive ones... I found the youngest age group to be the most competitive at Level 4 in our state.

 

[MuggleMom]

My Aunt and Uncle were at a meet this weekend and they dont really know how any of this works I explained is as they put every girl in that session at that level on a number line then chunk them into equal sized groups. So as everyone said it will vary by meet thats why its always best to focus on improvement rather than placement... especially at the lower levels where there are tons of girls and its highly competitive. My daughter never placed super high in level 4 but she always had respectable scores Good luck!