All-Star Concern About Small Limited & Small All Girl At Worlds

[Mom Jeans]

I agree it is 50% of the smaller #. I was wondering if they realized that by adding the prelims, it's not 50% that are attending finals as has been in the past. I know people complain about how long Worlds is, maybe they should do this for all divisions, not just the ones with a certain number.

 

[ICE_it_up]

The way I read the process is that due to small limited and small all girl having so many teams that they are not taking 50% overall. USASF will only take 50% from pre-lims, and 50% from semi-finals just like the other divisions. I dont think that this is in anyway unfair it just means that teams have to work even harder to make it to Day 2.

I completely agree. Worlds only announces the Final top 10 (3 awarded a medal)- So why does it matter if 50 teams make finals or 35 or 25 teams make Finals??

 

[imrichhowboutu]

What you should do is take a look at last years scores and look at the point spread between 1st place and 30% through the division, and the bottom of finals. In theory, if you dont make semi finals, you wouldnt have made finals either. Then there are the few teams that may have made finals if it was split, but depending on how teams perform, i don't see anyone towards the back of the pack jumping more than 10 spots up.

 

[Knowcheering]

Not trying to be rude but everything in life isnt about being "fair" this is a competitive sport. Worlds is logistical nightmare and the USASF is doing a bang up job on this event (probably the only complitment I've ever given to the USASF) I see more negatives allowed when adding the extra 15% to finals and the only argument from your point is "its not fair" well I dont think anyone important is going to listen to your case.

I completely agree that the USASF does a great job, and I would hope that my post said a lot more than simply "it's not fair". I'm interested in hearing why you think having 50% of teams in all the divisions compete (which is how it's always been) is a negative. I don't think Worlds being a "logistical nightmare" is a good reason. Aren't a lot of cheerleading competitions "logistical nightmares"? There are 250+ teams registered at many competitions that have to be crammed into one or two arenas both on Saturday and Sunday. Event producers don't cut teams from Sunday's competition because they can't fit them...If they chose to run the event, it is their duty to accommodate all the teams that are registered for their competition. After all, everyone pays the same comp. fees.

I am obviously not expecting everyone, or even close to everyone, to compete on Sunday at Worlds. I am merely hoping that 50% rather than 35% of these two divisions (which amounts to a whole 10 extra teams per division, or 40 minutes worth of additional competition) are allowed to compete on Sunday like ALL the other club divisions... This has been standard for years. And if it must be changed, it should be changed for all the divisions.

Considering how many teams are competing on Saturday (roughly 90 teams in each of these divisions when you add the Prelims + Semis competitors) compared to how few teams are competing on Sunday, I can't see how 10 extra teams would be a substantial burden on Sunday's competition. The few people there to only watch Sr Elite and a few other teams may be upset, sure, but I can't see how many teams in these two divisions would be opposed. The fact that this is Worlds is even more of a reason to make sure that enough teams are getting Day 2 opportunities. We all know how expensive this trip is, even for teams with Paid bids, and how important this competition is. All teams are required to stay in Disney for Sunday. 60% of these two divisions advanced to Day 2 last year.... Dropping that to 35% is a drastic reduction especially when the other divisions remain unchanged.

In Olympic gymnastics they only take the top 2 from each country. So if the USA had the top 3 spots after prelims, too bad for the girl in #3.....she is one of the top gymnasts in the world, but can't compete in finals-even though a no-name from some country that is not strong in gymnastics gets to compete in finals-even though she has no chance of winning, or even placing.

Now, I know that cheer and gymnastics are very different. But, they are both competitive sports and it's about winning.

Elite gymnastics is a very different thing. It's much more of a professional rather than an amateur sport, and decision-making revolves heavily around catering to the needs of live network television and ticket sales, both of which are of no concern to cheerleading (there's no live TV coverage and ticket sales come almost exclusively from the families of cheerleaders). The shorter the gymnastics competition, the easier it is to fit it into the live time slot that network television demands. Without TV, gymnastics at that level will die. Believe me, the fact that so few gymnasts get to compete in the Finals events at the Olympics has upset MOST people in the gymnastics community, but the sport is heavily reliant on TV and $$.

On top of this, the federations sending their gymnasts to the Olympics are not required to purchase a package and can leave the competition if they don't make it out of the first day of competition. Some federations will pay the expense for Prelim rounds only if they know their gymnasts do not have the scoring potential to advance to the next day. The Olympics and Cheerleading Worlds are really apples and oranges, and modeling cheerleading after gymnastics is probably not the best way to go.

 

[Knowcheering]

I thought about this too, I don't know if in the process they realized that some divisions would not have 50% in finals. If they knew that and that was their intention then it is what it is, but to have some divisions take 50% and some not take 50% is what's questionable. You can have whatever rule you want, but it should be the same across the board. Even if you had to add 10 teams to make it 50% @ 2.30min each that's not a lot when it comes to the amount of time needed. Then you add in the opinion that paid bids go to finals (dont want to start this argument, because past results can prove or disprove) is there room for at- large teams to actually end up in finals?

Yes, I too wonder if perhaps they didn't realize that 50% were not in some divisions. There were a few errors on the schedule, so it isn't far-fetched to believe that maybe it was something that was accidentally overlooked.

 

[Ashley]

I'm always happy with a Harry Potter reference!

I don't have a problem with the 35%. This is WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, the best of the best. It's not about being fair, or giving teams their "finals moment". That's just not what it's about. It's about winning. I'd be happy with them taking the top 5 teams from each division in prelims-that would make everyone push to hit in prelims-not to play it safe for prelims, just to get through to finals and then pull out all the stops at finals.

In Olympic gymnastics they only take the top 2 from each country. So if the USA had the top 3 spots after prelims, too bad for the girl in #3.....she is one of the top gymnasts in the world, but can't compete in finals-even though a no-name from some country that is not strong in gymnastics gets to compete in finals-even though she has no chance of winning, or even placing.

Now, I know that cheer and gymnastics are very different. But, they are both competitive sports and it's about winning.

It's like the international divisions! US teams 4-6 or so will probably beat the pants off of many of the international teams but won't get to go to finals. C'est la vie!

 

[Knowcheering]

It's like the international divisions! US teams 4-6 or so will probably beat the pants off of many of the international teams but won't get to go to finals. C'est la vie!

At least all the International divisions have the same 3 per country rule. The general goal of these divisions seems to be to promote International growth in the sport, and by allowing several foreign teams to place top 10, it could help encourage the growth of the sport elsewhere. BUT, if it was decided this year that in only the Intl Coed Lvl 5 division (that's the Intl division with a ton of teams, right?) that only 2 teams per country were going to advance instead of 3 because this division is so big, people would be up in arms. At least when all the divisions have the same rules, there's no feeling that one or two particular Intl divisions are getting shortchanged.

i mean its pointless to let everyone and their mothers gym make finals this is worlds! THE BEST will make finals no matter what cut off out of a division that is say sm sr and had like 70 something teams last yr...i really dont care who gets 35th place...and plus think about the ppl working it...it is a waste of time because i doubt a 35th place team deserves to be top 10 you see?

:D 35th place is half of 70... Halfway through the Lrg Sr division would be about 7th place... Didn't Cheer Athletics Panthers place 7th a couple years ago? You may have cared about them. When you are competing against 70 teams, a lot of teams would love to get 35th place. And some people DO want to watch that team.

Last year, the small divisions were split in half so that 50+ teams did not have to be judged together at the same time, and this allowed the 45th place (out of 60) team in Small Senior to advance to Finals (the 29th place team, however, did not advance, which is another story, but that's what prompted the creation of the Prelim round). Anyway, this team ended up finishing 30th something, or late 20s, but they gave a good performance in Finals, and one of their stunts did a double up that got several cheers from the crowd. They may have been the only All Girl team to attempt one. While some people there didn't care about a team that got the 36th and last spot into Finals, I know some of the crowd enjoyed watching them. My point is, there are people that appreciate the depth of the small divisions (without competition, we have no sport) and give these teams the same respect.

Again, I'm not wishing for "everyone and their mother" to get into Finals... I only want to see at least 50% of these two divisions there... Same as the other divisions. All the divisions deserve the same respect whether they are small or large, have a ton of teams, or barely any at all. For all we know, maybe the schedule makers miscalculated the number of teams that needed to advance to make it 50%. I'm hoping for that anyway.

 

[Deleted member 15]

I'd like to see finals limited to 10 teams per division, then all the finals could be in the Milkhouse.

 

[mollymags]

They're still taking 50% of those semi finalists. The prelim round was added to pick out which teams should get to fight for the chance to move on to finals. What's the point of having that if you're still going to take 50% of the overall number, rather than 50% of the teams in semi finals, like the rest of the divisions?

 

[Knowcheering]

They're still taking 50% of those semi finalists. The prelim round was added to pick out which teams should get to fight for the chance to move on to finals. What's the point of having that if you're still going to take 50% of the overall number, rather than 50% of the teams in semi finals, like the rest of the divisions?

The benefit of the Prelim round was so that 70 teams did not have to be judged against each other at once. Last year they tried to solve this by splitting the division into two groups for Day 1 (the top teams from each group advanced to Day 2). One group ended up being weaker than the other group, lower placing teams were able to sneak into Finals by being in the weaker group, and it simply didn't work.

This year, they came up with a much better method... Instead of having to judge 70 teams at once in Prelims, the judges only have to judge about 40. The Semi round will be similar. The only problem is that if about 50% of teams are chopped from BOTH of these rounds, only 35% of teams will end up competing on Day 2 in these two divisions only. I didn't think this was the point of the Prelim round... It's essentially punishing the divisions that have a lot of teams by decreasing the odds of making Finals somewhat significantly. I mean, if this schedule is following exactly, 50 Small Senior and 43 Small Limited teams won't compete on Sunday. That's a HUGE amount of club teams that are in Disney on Sunday for no reason. This massively expensive trip already rubs a lot of parents the wrong way, why make it worse.

If Worlds wants to keep the Prelim/Semi rounds at the size that they are, 70% of teams advancing out of Semis (about 30 teams) would give these divisions approximately 47% representation in Finals, which is STILL lower than the other divisions, but better than what it is now.

 

[kristenthegreat]

I'm not Lord Voldemort...I can't split myself :(

I was JUST about to post about how I'm still waiting on that HP reference..mission accomplished.

 

[NJ Coach]

I was JUST about to post about how I'm still waiting on that HP reference..mission accomplished.

bwahaha...yes, I'm more than a little distressed that Reign and Weather Girls are performing at the same time

 

[kyyyyyyxo]

In my opinion, which alot of people will probably disagree with, I feel as if the quality of the lowest scoring large all-girl and unlimited coed teams are much greater then that of the lowest scoring limited coed and small all-girl teams. When you compare the highest scoring large all-girl team to the lowest scoring large all-girl team, the gap is not NEAR as big as it would be if you were comparing the highest scoring small all-girl team and the lowest scoring all-girl team (probably having alot to do with the number of teams in these divisions that go to worlds), so I think in order to keep prestige and quality of teams high on day #2, they cut more girls from small all-girl and limited coed. I dont really think that a number percentage of teams is the best way to choose this. I think that a better way would be to say that in order to go to finals, you must be within a certain percentage of the highest scoring team, that way it considers the shape of the scoring curve (most likely a parabola). It's kind of like curving a test. Teachers dont say that the top 50% of the class gets a passing grade. They say that the highest scoring student is a 100% and then everyone elses grade is adjusted accordingly. Students who get D's after that adjustment, don't pass.

 

[Knowcheering]

In my opinion, which alot of people will probably disagree with, I feel as if the quality of the lowest scoring large all-girl and unlimited coed teams are much greater then that of the lowest scoring limited coed and small all-girl teams. When you compare the highest scoring large all-girl team to the lowest scoring large all-girl team, the gap is not NEAR as big as it would be if you were comparing the highest scoring small all-girl team and the lowest scoring all-girl team

I think the lowest scoring Large Sr team will probably be beaten by about 60 teams in Small Sr. Large Sr having far fewer teams does not necessarily mean that the bottom couple teams are any less outclassed by the 1st place team than you would see in Small. In fact, they may even be more outclassed because the top few in Large have separated themselves so substantially from the others. In one recent year, Large became rather Level 4 past about 10th place... Of course, the very top of Large will be stronger than Small especially because of the number of athletes on the floor, but there is a lot of parity in Small. A team ranked 9th Day 1 ended up placing 2nd last year. It's not really possible to compare two divisions that are so different, and I really liked the simple solution of allowing at least 50% in each division to make it to Day 2.

I dont really think that a number percentage of teams is the best way to choose this. I think that a better way would be to say that in order to go to finals, you must be within a certain percentage of the highest scoring team, that way it considers the shape of the scoring curve (most likely a parabola). It's kind of like curving a test. Teachers dont say that the top 50% of the class gets a passing grade. They say that the highest scoring student is a 100% and then everyone elses grade is adjusted accordingly. Students who get D's after that adjustment, don't pass.

I like the general idea of this a lot, it could be great. I'm of course not wishing for revamped rules this year... I on only want for things to remain more equal amongst all the divisions. The last team is currently scheduled to compete at 7:21 pm at the Milkhouse and 8:45 at Jostens. Would anyone in these two divisions really be bothered to see competition extended by maybe a half hour? Last year, there was even time allotted in the Milkhouse for the top 3 in Large Senior to exhibition. It really makes me wonder if this was an oversight-- maybe they simply didn't realize how low the percentage of Finalists teams was getting once they sliced these divisions in half twice instead of once. I know there are plenty of people- teams who finished in the 30s, 40s, 50s at last year's Worlds who'd be interested in this topic. They probably aren't reading this thread because it isn't fun and because I wrote entirely too much, but I know they're out there, and I know they would feel gypped if they saw the current schedule.

 

[BlueCat]

I'm upset that MD Weathergirls and Reign are competing at the same time on Saturday. I'm not Lord Voldemort...I can't split myself :(.

If you figure out the splitting-yourself spell, let me in on it - CA Fiercekatz and CA Panthers are both at the exact same time on Saturday also.