Understanding Team Placements
Our goal when placing teams is to set EVERY team in the gym up for success. We want to see levels 1 – 6 be dominant competitive teams both locally and nationally. With this goal in mind we are incredibly diligent when placing teams.
It all comes down to numbers. For more answers on those details please go to the scoring information where we try to give you a cursory understanding of the scoring process. However in short based off the number of athletes on the floor the judges expect a certain number of skills or stunts to be performed. For example, a team of 15 athletes would need to perform 1 section with 3 stunt groups and another with 2 stunt groups and have 9 athletes maxing out the running tumbling difficulty. This means coaches have to be very deliberate when determining their teams.
Not every athlete needs to be a tumbler and not every athlete will be a flyer. Our goal is to build powerful teams where every athlete has a role on the mat. Are teams that have everyone capable of performing all of the skills more impressive? Yes absolutely, our ultimate goal would be to have every athlete be capable of performing all of the tumbling skills, but there are times when hitting stunts takes priority in that effort.
One of the reasons we do our evaluation and team placement process the way we do is to be as diligent as we can. We want to make sure we are building the STRONGEST teams possible.
One of the placements you may see is athletes placed as alternates. These are athletes who are placed on a team that is their primary team but are also asked to be an alternate on another team in case there is an injury or athlete that leaves and we need an immediate replacement. This can result in athletes eventually making a team but does not guarantee they will be added to that team.
Are team placements FINAL the day after we announce them? Yes, but also slightly no. There are times where athletes get moved to other teams. This could be due to loss of tumbling skills that were demonstrated in order to make a team, or progressing in skill and needing to be crossed to a higher team. Our best recommendation is to focus on your athlete and when you have questions ask the coaches and or owners. We are happy to try to help you understand where we are coming from when we make the decisions we do.