WAG No More Super 8 for Region 4

[FlippinLilysMom]

I was so sad to learn that region 4 will no longer be doing the super 8 teams for regionals. The top 8 level 8 gymnasts (regardless of age) would be named to the super 8 team where they would compete as a state against the other region 4 state's super 8 teams. Lily was on it when she was a level 8 and it was still one of her favorite meets and memories. So bummed to learn that they aren't doing that anymore!!

 

[ladybird]

What was the rationale? I hadn’t heard this yet.

 

[ladybird]

Timed out before I could edit...

Two observations, first, it is hard to watch gymnasts have a bad meet at state and not make their state team like they were expected to. Second, girls who make their Super 8 teams have priority over those who don’t for Regional Training camps. Especially hard for the girls who come from large states with big gyms and are pretty amazing competitors have a lower priority.

We come from one of the smaller populated states and it certainly doesn’t go unnoticed.

 

[FlippinLilysMom]

Timed out before I could edit...

Two observations, first, it is hard to watch gymnasts have a bad meet at state and not make their state team like they were expected to. Second, girls who make their Super 8 teams have priority over those who don’t for Regional Training camps. Especially hard for the girls who come from large states with big gyms and are pretty amazing competitors have a lower priority.

We come from one of the smaller populated states and it certainly doesn’t go unnoticed.

I don't know what the rationale was but I can understand your points. However this year there were 2 girls from a very well known gym who had both made the super 8 team the year prior (the year Lily made the super 8 team), one of the girls had even finished 3rd all around at the super 8 meet. They both repeated level 8 and again both made the super 8 team this year, bumping out 2 girls from our gym who would have made it had they not repeated level 8. I still can't figure out why these 2 gymnasts, who both had amazing level 8 years repeated level 8 and got to be on the super 8 team again. It is the same for regionals though too. There were 2 girls from our gym who were both ranked 1st going into regionals and neither one made it to nationals. So while it can suck to have one bad meet keep you from making it to the next bigger meet it's the nature of the beast in this sport. I know for a lot of girls making it to the Super 8 team for their state was a big goal and we have a lot of very disappointed girls who know that now they will never even get that chance. the only reason I can think that they would do away with the super 8 teams is to try and get more gyms to send their level 8s to regionals. Our gym would only send level 8s to regionals if they made the super 8 team. He still doesn't plan to send our level 8s to regionals though, even with this change.

 

[FlippinLilysMom]

And as for regional training camp, our coach has never sent any gymnasts from our gym to that, but don't the level 9s and 10s get first priority over the level 8s anyways??? So I can't imagine that being the reason for the change.

 

[ladybird]

And as for regional training camp, our coach has never sent any gymnasts from our gym to that, but don't the level 9s and 10s get first priority over the level 8s anyways??? So I can't imagine that being the reason for the change.

Absolutely true, but there was one year where there was still room for 8s and I saw only those who made Super 8 get the chance that particular year. Years prior, they actually went down to the lowest priority and some 7s got to go. I’m talking about the North Camp.

 

[ladybird]

I don't know what the rationale was but I can understand your points. However this year there were 2 girls from a very well known gym who had both made the super 8 team the year prior (the year Lily made the super 8 team), one of the girls had even finished 3rd all around at the super 8 meet. They both repeated level 8 and again both made the super 8 team this year, bumping out 2 girls from our gym who would have made it had they not repeated level 8. I still can't figure out why these 2 gymnasts, who both had amazing level 8 years repeated level 8 and got to be on the super 8 team again. It is the same for regionals though too. There were 2 girls from our gym who were both ranked 1st going into regionals and neither one made it to nationals. So while it can suck to have one bad meet keep you from making it to the next bigger meet it's the nature of the beast in this sport. I know for a lot of girls making it to the Super 8 team for their state was a big goal and we have a lot of very disappointed girls who know that now they will never even get that chance. the only reason I can think that they would do away with the super 8 teams is to try and get more gyms to send their level 8s to regionals. Our gym would only send level 8s to regionals if they made the super 8 team. He still doesn't plan to send our level 8s to regionals though, even with this change.

Our gym was thinking about not sending girls to the regular sessions going forward. Like you said, a lot of girls have this goal their level 8 year and it’s too bad those girls that repeated bumped out the other two in your gym.

It will be really interesting to see what happens this year!

 

[gymmomtotwo]

Personally I feel less sorry for a few kids that can no longer qualify for Super 8, than all the hard working Level 8s that have toiled for years to reach a level where they qualify to Regionals and their coaches refuse to take them. I find that difficult to understand and frankly cruel. You qualify, you go. My kid is a good gymnast with state titles in her age group in individual events in level 4-8 including level 8 last year. She was not a Super 8 qualifier. I can't imagine her not going to Regionals. She did quite well placing top 3 in her best event. She deserved to be there just like the rest of the qualifiers. I have heard of another Minnesota gym with a similar policy and just shake my head. Do those kids not matter? It makes no sense.

 

[ladybird]

Personally I feel less sorry for a few kids that can no longer qualify for Super 8, than all the hard working Level 8s that have toiled for years to reach a level where they qualify to Regionals and their coaches refuse to take them. I find that difficult to understand and frankly cruel. You qualify, you go. My kid is a good gymnast with state titles in her age group in individual events in level 4-8 including level 8 last year. She was not a Super 8 qualifier. I can't imagine her not going to Regionals. She did quite well placing top 3 in her best event. She deserved to be there just like the rest of the qualifiers. I have heard of another Minnesota gym with a similar policy and just shake my head. Do those kids not matter? It makes no sense.

I agree! My dd qualified for regionals but wasn’t on the Super 8 team. I remember her coach talking about the possibility of our gym only participating in the Super 8 session many years before that and couldn’t imagine. Lots of girls dream to one day make it to regionals because they know they may not get any further than level 8. And then someone just takes it away.

Now that there are no state teams, I think there will be a lot less pressure at state make it and they won’t feel like failures if they don’t.

 

[FlippinLilysMom]

Personally I feel less sorry for a few kids that can no longer qualify for Super 8, than all the hard working Level 8s that have toiled for years to reach a level where they qualify to Regionals and their coaches refuse to take them. I find that difficult to understand and frankly cruel. You qualify, you go. My kid is a good gymnast with state titles in her age group in individual events in level 4-8 including level 8 last year. She was not a Super 8 qualifier. I can't imagine her not going to Regionals. She did quite well placing top 3 in her best event. She deserved to be there just like the rest of the qualifiers. I have heard of another Minnesota gym with a similar policy and just shake my head. Do those kids not matter? It makes no sense.

I can totally see your point, I guess for most at our gym it isn't a big deal as this has always been the policy so the gymnasts and the parents know this. Our coach also won't ever bring the level 6s or 7s to regionals. He would prefer to have them start working on their upgrades and working towards moving up to the next level versus bringing them to regionals. Now that there isn't a super 8 team he may change his mind and start bringing the level 8s to regionals, but probably only when regionals are held locally.

 

[NutterButter]

However this year there were 2 girls from a very well known gym who had both made the super 8 team the year prior (the year Lily made the super 8 team), one of the girls had even finished 3rd all around at the super 8 meet. They both repeated level 8 and again both made the super 8 team this year, bumping out 2 girls from our gym who would have made it had they not repeated level 8. I still can't figure out why these 2 gymnasts, who both had amazing level 8 years repeated level 8 and got to be on the super 8 team again.

But these two girls didn’t bump out 2 girls from your gym, did they? They simply scored higher at the meet that counted the most. It’s not relevant that both competed as L8 the year before. One of the girls didn’t even compete all around at Regionals in 2017. How do you even know they had the skills for L9? The gym in question is a strong gym with a long track record of sending athletes to D1 and more recently with girls qualifying elite. This gym has high standards for advancement and usually wins 1st at meets but that doesn’t mean they hold kids back to simply so they can place 1st as a team or qualify for super 8.

I know for a lot of girls making it to the Super 8 team for their state was a big goal and we have a lot of very disappointed girls who know that now they will never even get that chance. the only reason I can think that they would do away with the super 8 teams is to try and get more gyms to send their level 8s to regionals. Our gym would only send level 8s to regionals if they made the super 8 team. He still doesn't plan to send our level 8s to regionals though, even with this change.

This is the pot calling the kettle black. For your gym, the goal has to be super 8 because that’s the only pathway girls get to Regionals. And because of your gym’s requirements/training regimen, this would be a realistic goal for many. But you have to acknowledge that the bar (no pun intended) is set RIDICULOUSLY high with your gym’s rule. Many wonderful athletes qualify for regionals who don’t have the ability, time, talent, etc to train enough where they might be considered a candidate for scoring high enough for super 8. Your DD had multiple L10 skills the year she competed L8 as did her teammates who also represented MN that year. I’d be willing to bet that the girls who repeated super 8 do not have the depth of L9 and L10 skills that the girls from your gym have in L8.

Most gyms are not trying to qualify athletes to super 8. My guess is that it has more to do with the overall difficulty of scheduling the entire weekend and/or the overall discrepancy of state scores in the super 8 meet. Look at the difference between North Dakota and Minnesota. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the gap between MN, IA and MO and all others just continues to grow. Look at how R4 represented this year at Classic (which your DD was part of!). There’s quite the depth of talent in our region now!

And as for regional training camp, our coach has never sent any gymnasts from our gym to that, but don't the level 9s and 10s get first priority over the level 8s anyways??? So I can't imagine that being the reason for the change.

No, you are wrong. Super 8 is a pathway for a L8 to participate in the region camps. The super 8 have priority over L9 who didn’t qualify to regionals or state (I think?). As the other poster stated, sometimes they go deeper in the list but when camps are held in the Twin Cities, they don’t need to go deeper and will fill by Priority group 4.

Our coach also won't ever bring the level 6s or 7s to regionals. He would prefer to have them start working on their upgrades and working towards moving up to the next level versus bringing them to regionals.

Your gym isn’t alone in not sending L6/L7 to regionals. Most of the gyms with strong optional programs are not participating. Look at the list of participating gyms --- most of these gyms struggle to get kids to L10 and simply are not competitive in upper level optionals (and are underrepresented at L8-10 regionals). I think it gives more kids an opportunity to compete in the post season and there's nothing wrong with this! Also keep in mind that last year was just the 2nd year for L6/L7 regionals. Maybe participation will increase.

 

[FlippinLilysMom]

But these two girls didn’t bump out 2 girls from your gym, did they? They simply scored higher at the meet that counted the most. It’s not relevant that both competed as L8 the year before. One of the girls didn’t even compete all around at Regionals in 2017. How do you even know they had the skills for L9? The gym in question is a strong gym with a long track record of sending athletes to D1 and more recently with girls qualifying elite. This gym has high standards for advancement and usually wins 1st at meets but that doesn’t mean they hold kids back to simply so they can place 1st as a team or qualify for super 8.



This is the pot calling the kettle black. For your gym, the goal has to be super 8 because that’s the only pathway girls get to Regionals. And because of your gym’s requirements/training regimen, this would be a realistic goal for many. But you have to acknowledge that the bar (no pun intended) is set RIDICULOUSLY high with your gym’s rule. Many wonderful athletes qualify for regionals who don’t have the ability, time, talent, etc to train enough where they might be considered a candidate for scoring high enough for super 8. Your DD had multiple L10 skills the year she competed L8 as did her teammates who also represented MN that year. I’d be willing to bet that the girls who repeated super 8 do not have the depth of L9 and L10 skills that the girls from your gym have in L8.

Most gyms are not trying to qualify athletes to super 8. My guess is that it has more to do with the overall difficulty of scheduling the entire weekend and/or the overall discrepancy of state scores in the super 8 meet. Look at the difference between North Dakota and Minnesota. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the gap between MN, IA and MO and all others just continues to grow. Look at how R4 represented this year at Classic (which your DD was part of!). There’s quite the depth of talent in our region now!



No, you are wrong. Super 8 is a pathway for a L8 to participate in the region camps. The super 8 have priority over L9 who didn’t qualify to regionals or state (I think?). As the other poster stated, sometimes they go deeper in the list but when camps are held in the Twin Cities, they don’t need to go deeper and will fill by Priority group 4.



Your gym isn’t alone in not sending L6/L7 to regionals. Most of the gyms with strong optional programs are not participating. Look at the list of participating gyms --- most of these gyms struggle to get kids to L10 and simply are not competitive in upper level optionals (and are underrepresented at L8-10 regionals). I think it gives more kids an opportunity to compete in the post season and there's nothing wrong with this! Also keep in mind that last year was just the 2nd year for L6/L7 regionals. Maybe participation will increase.

Yes, the girls did get higher scores and definitely earned their place on the super 8 team, I certainly wasn't trying to take anything away from that. It was just sad for a couple of our girls who won't be repeating level 8 to lose out on their chance to have made the super 8 team. And yes, they do come from an amazing gym who has and will continue to produce very talented college bound and elite level gymnasts. I do find this entire thread funny though, when Lily made it to nationals this year I recall so many saying...well she comes from a small, easy region, so it wasn't as hard for her to make it to nationals as it is for so many other gymnasts who come from bigger, more competitive regions. And here we are now debating the difficulty between states within the same region.

 

[FlippinLilysMom]

And as I've stated, not taking level 8s to regionals has always been the protocol in our gym, if a family isn't happy with that then there are many, many other gyms in our area that do take their level 8s to regionals and they are more than welcome to go there. We haven't yet had a family leave for that reason, so clearly it isn't a deal breaker for most.

 

[gymmomtotwo]

It is a mystery to me why gyms require their level 6-8 to take trips across the country for regular meets, but skip regionals in their own backyard. Any state in Region 4 is a drivable distance frm the Twin Cities. Why Arizona or Florida but not Wisconsin etc for championships?

 

[l.c.o]

My take: I actually think this is fairly good news. Several local gyms (including DD's gym before she retired) opted not to compete their level 8's at regionals due to the format.

While I respect that others disagree and liked the super 8 format, I think it makes sense. What did it mean to win the non-super 8 sessions? And what about the girls who placed low in the super 8 sessions, when they'd otherwise kick butt in an age group without it being split?

 

[reluctant]

I can totally see your point, I guess for most at our gym it isn't a big deal as this has always been the policy so the gymnasts and the parents know this. Our coach also won't ever bring the level 6s or 7s to regionals. He would prefer to have them start working on their upgrades and working towards moving up to the next level versus bringing them to regionals. Now that there isn't a super 8 team he may change his mind and start bringing the level 8s to regionals, but probably only when regionals are held locally.

I'm curious about the rationale of the gym not taking their girls to Regionals when they travel to many other meets? Why not let them show their stuff against the best girls in your region? Regionals is really fun too.

 

[3rd_time_around]

Timed out before I could edit...

Two observations, first, it is hard to watch gymnasts have a bad meet at state and not make their state team like they were expected to. Second, girls who make their Super 8 teams have priority over those who don’t for Regional Training camps. Especially hard for the girls who come from large states with big gyms and are pretty amazing competitors have a lower priority.

We come from one of the smaller populated states and it certainly doesn’t go unnoticed.

But this is gymnatics, the best ones on that day make the team, just like the Olympics and just like Easterns/Westerns and Nationals. This is the worst reasoning I could think of for cancelling the Super 8. We have Super 8 for levels 6, 7, and 8.

 

[3rd_time_around]

My take: I actually think this is fairly good news. Several local gyms (including DD's gym before she retired) opted not to compete their level 8's at regionals due to the format.

While I respect that others disagree and liked the super 8 format, I think it makes sense. What did it mean to win the non-super 8 sessions? And what about the girls who placed low in the super 8 sessions, when they'd otherwise kick butt in an age group without it being split?

I've actually heard coaches say they'd rather their gymnasts not make the State Team because then their regionals will be more enjoyable for them. Our 6/7/8 regional meet lasts 3 full days, and everyone wants to qualify. I don't understand not taking them if they aren't the top 8 in the state, this is their "nationals" so to speak. It's their time to shine. Let them.

 

[ladybird]

But this is gymnatics, the best ones on that day make the team, just like the Olympics and just like Easterns/Westerns and Nationals. This is the worst reasoning I could think of for cancelling the Super 8. We have Super 8 for levels 6, 7, and 8.

I understand. My point was not making super 8 leads to being farther down in the priority list for regional training camp not that it’s a reason to cancel it. Just an observation.

I don’t even know if 6s and 7s have super 8 because our gym hasn’t sent them to regionals yet since it started.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Our region (6) has a state team. Top, 7 I think, might be wrong on exact number but it’s the top scorers regardless of age. Then the all star team, also top scorers.

I’m not sure why anyone wouldn’t have their gymmies go but then we are in a state where the top 50 ish out of about 300 that scored well enough to go to states earn a spot. I think that’s a pretty big deal, but heck what do I know.