A short statement on Orange and the weekend. While every win is highly appreciated, the way the weekend went and how they came to the win was not preferable. They lost a member mid routine (and no matter what team or whoever anywhere... even my own biggest competition I NEVER wish an injury on anyway) in a very dramatic fashion. They had to go backstage, quickly work in a substitute, and then finish the routine while one of their members was in obvious pain. They came back, were able to finish the routine, and hit their pyramid and second stunt sequence with an obvious omission. From a scoring standpoint I do agree with the day 1 scores. Their overall difficulty was a good bit higher than the teams in the division (though the other teams are quite talented). They had a 3 point lead going into day 2. (know that a 3 point lead actually translates to a 9 point lead when you compare to deductions... all deductions are taken off before the average).
Day two they brought in a replacement who worked with them to learn the routine completely as fast as she could. When you break down the parts they still fairly outscored most of the division in both tumbling sections, baskets, and the first stunt section. You could tell there was a lot of adjustments they weren't comfortable with, but that is because they went through a lot and had a lot to handle. And, in all reality, they did not win day 2. They were certain parts of the scoresheet I am sure they were still the highest, but based on their final score you can see day 2 was definitely not their best. It isn't like their tumbling score went down because of their pyramid, and even though transitions weren't the best cause of changes they still jumped on time.
So mathematically speaking a lot of this makes sense. Cheersport scoresheet does NOT have a lot of movement from day 1 to day 2. I would say 90% of the time in all the divisions very few of the placements change from day 1 to day 2. Not because of some conspiracy, but because mathematically thats how it works out.
So, do I think Orange deserved to win? When you think about it scoresheet wise, yes I see how the judges came to their conclusion. I think everyone is focussed on the big picture of just one day, instead of seeing the forrest for the trees. The end of a long line of calculations and scoring they did deserve it.
And, remember, this isn't the way anyone wanted the weekend to go for them (or any team, we also had an athlete dislocate her knee just playing around doing a cartwheel). Injuries, basically, suck. While I like to win as much as anyone, I wouldn't trade an athlete getting hurt for a national/world championship.
