Prelims

Date: Fri Aug 11 11:03 AM, 2006

RE: Prelims

Date: Fri Aug 11 6:52 PM, 2006

I was thinking about the minimum score to qualify from prelims to finals. What if your team is really good but had to go through prelims and someone had the jitters or felt sick the first day and the team dropped their pyramid and had probs with other aspects. It might of been their worst performance of the year but they are usually very solid and may be able to place well but could not advance because they did not make the minimum score because of one bad routine. Sometimes the scores are very close and with 1 bad performance your whole trip to Worlds could end early. I think it is good to give teams a chance to get out the nervous bobbles in prelims and maybe the team that had problems may take one of the top spots in finals. It is a very expensive for a team (esp from CA) to go to Worlds so I like the idea of more going to finals instead of maybe cutting out a team that had a bad day.

Date: Fri Aug 11 7:15 PM, 2006

But.........a bad day is a part of cheer! A bad day on the day of finals is no different. At least I don't see the difference?

Date: Fri Aug 11 8:39 PM, 2006

There are playoffs in sports, and the winners advance. You lose in the playoffs, you don't advance. You don't get two chances because you might have a bad day the first day. It just weakens our sport, IMO. Also, the teams that made it to prelims to begin with might have beat out another team that just happened to have a bad day. Example, Pyramids vs. Motions. I was there and I would say Pyramids had a bad night. Any other time, the contest between the two would have been a lot closer (just stating my own observation). So bad nights, bad days, they cost you. That is the nature of our sport.

Date: Fri Aug 11 8:41 PM, 2006

Sorry, I didn't clarify about watching Pyramids vs. Motions ... it was at Jamz Nationals in Vegas for the paid bid to Worlds. (just in case that wasn't clear, sorry)

Date: Fri Aug 11 8:58 PM, 2006

Having the chance to perform once in front of judges AND get your score sheets puts you far ahead of those who don't. It's just that simple. We're not talking about "having a bad day." It's about that chance to get scored on your routine and make changes or improve on low areas. The teams that didn't have that opportunity were at a disadvantage. They competed without the chance to know what the judges score were on the different areas of their routine and what they needed to improve. Based on this fact alone, and again not on having a bad day, the teams that did prelims had the advantage. I agree, the top teams as Worlds that didn't do prelims were the best of the best. One time is sometimes all you get and they took advantage of it. Other teams got to do it twice and still didn't rise to the top even though that had the advantage.

Date: Fri Aug 11 10:59 PM, 2006

So are you saying you are for having a minimum score in prelims? I think that's where you stand but wasn't sure.

So here's a question.... if the majority of people think that there should be some kind of minimum score and USASF shouldn't simply say "a minimum of 50% will go through to finals" without even seeing the talent, will this rule ever change? If it's really about money (water it down, let more through to finals so that you get more to come out, spend $$$), then I don't see this changing. Would they do it for the good of the sport? Do they take suggestions from people who are not on the board and who don't have anything to gain by a change such as this one?

Date: Sat Aug 12 9:59 AM, 2006

Thought I'd mention this has also been posted to the whatisprox.com board; it's interesting to read other responses as well as these.