Parents State Meets. Are they?

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Can someone explain the whole "State" competition meaning to me. Cause... I'm not getting it.

My DD tells me her "State" meet is coming up late in December, and by then she'll have attended THREE whole meets this season.

Now, being that there are literally thousands of Gymnastic schools in Missouri, I'm having a hard time accepting these as "State Championships", especially when it seems that only a select few clubs compete against each other in "invitational" meets.

Are there any true "State" competitions? :confused:
 
I think it depends where you live, but I am pretty sure State Meets usually involve most gyms from the State. I know we had about 25 gyms at DDs State Meet, sure, not all attend, but most that I know of were there.

Each state requirements of how to qualify and it varies HUGELY. Here, compulsories only have to get a 28.00AA at one sanctioned meet to be able to go, and of course each gym has their own standards as well. I know some gyms here require girls to have 32AA to represent their gym, others probably higher. Optionals have to score 31AA at one sanctioned meet to go to their States here.

I imagine that some states where competitive gymnastics is really popular, they must have higher standards or they would have 1000 girls competing. LOL. There were somewhere over 300 girls at DDs level 4 State meet.

I think in some states, it really is the "best of the best" competing. Here, it seems like we have less gymnasts and States is really just like any other meet, except that you have to qualify to it with a pretty easily attainable score (though my DD barely qualified and that was her best). She had a lot of fun seeing all the different gyms and their leos. LOL.
 
DD competed at the AAU State Meet for level 2 last spring. There were 30 level 2 teams and 246 level 2 gymnasts. At level 2! You could try googling for MO USAG state meet and see what you come up with. MO appears to be a state the does sectionals before state, which would indicate qualification to state by scores at sectionals.

Wait, I did find it... here's a link for the MO state meet results from last year. State 2008 At level 5, there were 38 teams. This might give you some idea of how big a state meet actually can be.
 
On quick count, there were 337 level 5 gymnasts at last year's MO state meet.
 
I don't claim to know about all states. But in ours, the gymmie must obtain a set score, (depending on her level) at some point during the competition season to get into sectionals. I think our score to get into sectionals last year was 31AA. There are sectional meets held throughout the different "sections" of the state(central,eastern,western,etc), towards to end of the season. Those who make it to sectionals must obtain a certain score at their sectional meet to move on to "states". I think they had to have a 32 or 33 AA at sectionals to compete at states last year. "States" is the final meet of the season, for us, in compulsories. One big meet, a whole meet of level 6's(let's say)...it is the best of the best from the entire state...it's a very big deal here. Optionals(levels 7-10) can go onto regionals & nationals. But I suppose it all varies state to state.
 
Hmmm Interesting. Thanks.
It would seem there are 68 USAG "clubs" in Missouri, based on the website info which seemed low to me. When I look at the yellow pages for just the St. Louis area, there are more then 30 clubs listed offering Gymnastics, with less then 1/2 of them being listed on the official website.

Lots more to learn I guess.
 
Lots of clubs have USAG certified instructors, etc. but in order to save $$ they opt not to be listed in the USAG listing of gyms in their state.
 
There can be many, many gyms, but not all of them have a USAG Jr. Olympic program. In other words, they are solely 'recreational' gyms, and do not have any USAG "Levels" that actually go to meets. Hope this helps!
 
I think you are referring to the Amerikids State Championship - which is a seperate from USAG. Through USAG, your state does offer a fall & a spring state meet for Level 3/4 though.

Anyone know the AA requirement for MO for state (USAG)?

In our state we have no sectionals. The gymnasts obtain their scores only via any sanctioned meet (lots to choose from). For instance, say Level 5 - it would be a 33 AA . As long as the gymnast gets the required score they are allowed to compete at state. Most - but not all gyms - send their gymnasts to state if they get their score.
 
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Also some gyms may have a very small team program and only have 1 or 2 girls from the team actually go to states and they don't get listed in the team results. States also vary widely on what levels even have a state meet. In CO, there is no competition below L4, so you only see state meet results for L4-10.
 
Ah, you are all correct... State Championship meets vary by the individual states. The more clubs and gymnasts in the state the more "steps" they have taken to streamline the meet to be the best of the best at state, and quite often they don't start championships until Level 4, however nationally in USAG's R&P (Rules & Policies) even Level 4 can be a choice for the individual state board, it just so happens that all the states include L4. Many states still have not adopted the Level 3 program into their state competition structures. It seems the lower population states, such as mine, have to help increase the interest to compete earlier.

I've coached in Washington (and competed there), Ohio and currently Wyoming. Washington has seperated their L4 gyms into "small/big" gym (based on population) and and uses a sectional qualifying system. They also have a fall and a spring state, and some other division of gold, silver, bronze categories, that is new since I've been there. Washington does not have a L3 championship. Ohio also has large gym (national) and small gym (american) division. They further breakdown by age groups, as many age breakdowns as they need to make groups of approx 12- 16 gymnasts competing against each other, i.e. 9yrs A (Jan-Mar Bdays), 9yrs B (Apr-Jun Bdays), etc. There are no sectionals although the first year I coached there, they had North and South State Championships, the last year I was there they didn't. There is a state qualifying score, but all gym's usually set the bar higher for qualification to state, such as 34.00AA. Ohio also does not have a Level 3 Championship. Wyoming is much smaller. Right now we only have one single score to qualify... 30.00AA, but our gym has it set to 32.00 OR consistently place in the top 50% at the sanctioned meets we attended (obviously with a minimum of 30.00). Last year we only had 4 L4's qualify, this year all but 1 (total of 8 qualified). Our 6's are the one's that needed the concession to place top 50%, we just plain old don't have very many in the state Wyoming. As a gym though we feel the right to represent our gym at the state championship should be a earned though. We don't have a State Board sponsored Level 3 State Championship, but our gym sponsors a Championship meet in conjunction with the L4-6 Compulsory Championship. It's brought up at the state meeting every year, they vote no, so our gym keeps having a "championship" with all but maybe one or two gyms that don't bring any 3's. I've heard the reasonings why they don't want to recognize L3 for a state championship, but it is contrary to what the gyms and parents are showing that they want. We feel the state is passing up an opportunity for more revenue for the state. Our gym takes that revenue instead.

In a nutshell, every state is different. Most states have a website that publishes their state handbook and low and behold Missouri doesn't put theirs on the web. Can't tell you what their process is.

Hope that sheds some insight into your search for the importance of state championships and what they truly mean. Probably more info than you wanted to know.
 
Like most said each state has their own format. In our area all state meets are at the end of the full year of a season for levels 4 on up. Each level has a required score to hit and the gymnast can hit it at any Usag sanction meet before the required deadline. Our level 4 state is divided between NORTH and South as there are so many.( Last year 500 in each ) There is one State for each other level . Last year over 600 level 5s divided by bdate not necessarily age so each age group had an even number of competitors. We have done away with sectionals and just raised our qualifying score. While levels 4,5,and 7, have a very large number of qualifiers and 8,9, and 10 have a moderately equal amount,Level 6 still proves to always have the smallest amount of qualifiers in our area. ( last year approx 250) Illinois State meets are very competitive with almost all gyms participating
 
This is how NJ works:

Level 4 - 7: You compete at a Invitational (at these levels the Invitational has to be in State) to get a AA score of 30 or more to qualify to a Sectional. There are 3 Sectionals spread out through the season. In NJ, there is one season per level: 4, 6 & 7 compete in Fall with States in Jan and level 5 competes in Spring with States in May. You have to get a qualifying score 2 weeks before a Sectional weekend. Then you go to a Sectional and need to get an AA score of 32 or higher to qualify to States. Of course there are a tone of 4s and asyou get higher in levels the numbers start to decrease. This yr they actually divided the 4s into Novice and Open (which is great.)

Last yr for Level 7, my dd was the AA State Champion for her age group: 11 yr old Jr division. This was out of about 35 girls, this would definitely be considered the best of the best of the State.

Now dd is a level 8 and she had to again get a qualifying score of 30 AA at an Invitational to qualify for Sectionals (she got this a couple weeks ago, so she is set for the 1st Sectional). For level 8, there are only 2 Sectionals, where you have to get the 32 to go to States. Now for level 8 they also have Regionals. For her to go to Regionals, she would have to finish in the top 8 of AA at States to be guaranteed a spot at Regionals. She could be taken after that but there are other factors that go into it and there is no guarantee. The top 6 AA would represent NJ at Regionals and the next 2 would be a part of the All Star Team.

9s and 10s are a whole new ball game where you have to qualify to States at an in-state and out of state meet. At States they need a 34 to qualify to Regionals and I don't know the percentage that go to represent at Nationals - hopefully I'll learn in a couple of yrs! ;)

But as others have said, each State is different and this is just a snap shop of our State but as you can see it changes by level for dd.
 
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Even still this particular "state" meet that his dd is attending is not USAG but through Amerikids, which is sepearate from USAG.

Tim-dad, I am curious ... is your dd competing her routines in a traditional USAG way for this meet?
 
Umm, I honestly don't know what that means. She's an L3, performing the standard USAG L3 routine, and being judged as such.
 
AmeriKids Gymnastics

Sorry, I did not realize you did not know... here is the link to Amerikids. I know very little about the program or their state meet, how to qualify etc., but they may provide further info here.

There are several other competitive programs other than USAG in the US. Usually it varies by state or by club. It sounds like your club most likely does bith Amerikids & USAG.
 

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