Welcome to College & Cocktails!
College & Cocktails combines our weekly Behind The Scenes Q&A live podcast with a college meet of the week. We start after the college meet ends on Friday nights (Pacific time). It’s our appreciation love letter to club members for supporting the show. Here’s how to ask questions live.
We are talking about all the Friday meets with special focus on Georgia vs. Michigan with special guest, Vanessa Atler! We’re going live right here on this page around 6:00pm Pacific after the meet ends. For more info on how to watch your favorite elites, Olympic and World medalists all year long, check out The Balance Beam Situation’s schedule with links.
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What was it like competing with Shannon Miller?
I wanted to comment afterwards, mostly because I am a judge. We don’t get together and conspire how to judge. For state meet and above, we are required by USAG to judge a scored video they provide.
Vanessa, come to AZ where on 12/4 we ran a clinic for both coaches and judges. It was an XCel update and a chance to work through the new rules.We had kids who demonstrated and were scored at each level and then some of the judges explained the deductions and what we were looking for.
I was so tired, I fell asleep and hadn’t scrolled down the page far enough, but yeah, this meet was weird. Found it at the last minute. If you couldn’t hear the name, I didn’t know who was performing and I never saw a single score. Seemed like it was the school’s camera. I only saw the last rotation.
I think the first two floor routines were BORING. When they got to Soraya it wasn’t painful to watch. There was a routine with significant deductions and with how high the team scores were, were impossible! One routine short of twists on both. I would’ve taken 0.3 just on that pass. I WAS going to jump back in, but things need to change. From watching meets, it appears the PAC-12 judges take the deductions. My last in person meet was UA/Washington. I saw some fair scores. The meet was too close.
Loose bar cables is a coaching responsibility and not a reason for a redo. USAG has made a bunch of things so there is NO redo. So, Malia was scored properly.
We have a huge NAWGJ symposium in Grand Rapids MI in July. There’s a ton of educational material on the NAWGJsite. It just needs to be carried over and used vs trying to please an audience.
There are the lines on vault now..Up to 0.3 on direction. You land close to either side, and I’m taking 0.2. My big question for the NCAA is why they don’t use the Level 10 vault chart where you get an extra 0.1 on a host of vaults. I want to see a vault that blasts! Having the extra 0.1 gives you that chance. We are rewarding mediocrity if the gymnast holds back for a stick that still has landing deductions!
what gets me, is all the hype on the floor after a routine. Do they think it will then score higher when they know it probably wasn’t their best. Almost think it works but bothers me.