Hello all, I will try to answer as many questions as I can from the list above. Before I do, I need to put some disclaimers/notes to my answers.
1. I will do my best to answer previously asked questions but in no way am I going to engage in drawn out conversations and fight conspiracy theories.
2. I know no matter what answers I give, it will never be enough for some people. If your mind is made up, there is nothing I can do to change it. I understand that and we will have to agree to disagree.
3. I hope you will have the respect to appreciate the fact that I am willing to come on here and face the fire. I am not trying to paint myself as a martyr or say woe is me but I am asking that you be respectful as I am being to you. You have never and will never see me come on these boards and name call or insinuate things about anyone.
Here goes:
1. The Bangkok rules discrepancies (boys on the floor, pyramid, and tumbling legalities) I have covered the boy issue already. We are creating additional documentation and taking additional steps to keep this from happening in the future. I agree that the spotting of the back handspring and the two person cradle were missed by my Safety Judges. Other things perceived illegal are not accurate. I can tell you that Bangkok was viewed under the same discrepancy and rules as every other team. I wish these things were caught and I wish I could say this was the only team where infractions were missed but that is not the case. Being that Bangkok is in a high profile situation, it creates the perception of favoritism. I understand that and I can only say again that they were viewed with the same sets of eyes and under the same guidelines as everyone else.
2. Some divisions settled a tie by skipping places, some had the next team get the next place (i.e. IOC6 tie for first, the 2d awarded but not 3d, 3-way tie for 7th, but next team got 8th). We have addressed this situation and have made progress in our process to make sure this inconsistency does not happen again.
3. What, if anything, did USASF/IASF do to control underage drinking at Worlds? We have and will continue to address this every year at Worlds. It is better than it has been in the past but not complete. We have tried a number of different things including hiring more security. Unfortunately, kids will always find a way and we will continue to do our best to curb this situation. We do ask that both parents and coaches help with this as much as possible.
4. What does the USASF intend to do about the overcrowding which is resulting in becoming a safety issue? This is another issue that we work on year after year and we will continue to try and get a handle on. If you have been to Worlds for a number of years, you have seen different schedules and arrangements to try and control the overcrowding. We have already had a couple of meetings to discuss this and are working on some ideas.
Do you think that the coaches VIP event as well as the Casino party conflict with this?
It seems like we can't win on this issue. No matter what we do "for" some, others will use it to blame us for something else. All I can tell you is that we try to do the best we can to make Worlds a great experience for everyone. Is it perfect? Nope. Will we continue to make it better? Yes
5. Why do we wait until worlds to train the judges on the worlds scoresheet? All but a very few of the judges have judged Worlds for a number of years. They are very familiar with the scoring process. We never put a panel or group a category (3 judges) together that are made up of new Worlds judges.
6. With all the talk and requests about limiting bids, especially in a division like small senior, what is the possibility of this happening? If not this year, next year? The year after. Im not a fan of giving bids away even though this is a big money making event. I could name a company that emailed us and said "if you come to (insert competition here) we will give your team a bid...." Thats not exactly earning it in my opinion.
Please email me and let me know which event producer said this. This is NOT acceptable!
7. What is the punishment/rule on a team member that was not released and still competed at Worlds? We dealt with released/not released athletes quite a bit at Worlds. If you know of something that was not brought to our attention, please do so.
I hope this clears up or at least helps some of your questions about the Worlds event. I look forward to putting this year behind us, learning form the event on what worked, what didn't and how we can improve so that we can make each year better and better.
To give you a heads up on what is new.
1. We have finished our conference calls on the new rules and they should be up "relatively" soon. There are a few new things that should make some levels happy.
2. Athletes that leave one gym and join another will only be regulated if attending Worlds (same as last year). We used Worlds as the test model last year and we are SO glad we did. There are so many details and variables to consider before this is moved to a national rule.
I hope you all had great tryouts and you have a successful 2011-2012 season.
Stay safe this Summer,
Les