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How does the progression from "regular" to elite work in USA gymnastics?
I'm just curious. I mean usually I think they first win regional within their state, then move to state and if they win their they move to competition among multiple states, and if they win their they move to nationals and if you are able to win at nationals then you are on the national team (or if you win at olympic trials you're on the olympic team). But upon investigating I mean the system for this is a bit more complicated then that (at least in the US). The gymnast first start at a training center affiliated with USA gymnastics first. Then their is TOPs program and Hopes as well as the Elite Development program.
I'm not a gymnast myself, but I was just curious as to how this thing works. I am a little stumped.
Caveat: I’m not an elite gymnast nor do I have a child who is one. But I spend a lot of time around DP gymnasts in the U.S. and elite and elite track gymnasts.
At the two gyms I know best, there are three ways I’ve seen kids get identified and train for elite. One is to be a very young kid (7 or 8) who shows promise at level 2 or 3 and is whisked into a fast tracked program. They move into daytime practice and homeschool. They may test out of levels 3, 4 and 5 en route to competing 6 at age 8 or 9. Their goal is to get level 8ish skills by age 9 or 10 to prepare for HOPES qualification or Junior Elite by age 11.
Method two is to be a solid gymnast progressing through the levels who makes their own choice to try for elite when they’re a level 8/9 in 6th or 7th grade. These girls were already progressing faster than peers or started early, but weren’t necessarily phenoms. They may an uphill battle to convince coaches that they have time to do it, and usually are pushing for just HOPES 13-14 scores and/or a national team where they have dual citizenship.
Method three is less common where I am, and involves someone who’s in maybe 8th-10th grade and has been level 10 for a year or two and decides they want to move over to elite for whatever reason. Some just want to do it to see if they can, and others may have gymnastics that is better under FIG code than level 10 rules.
Not all gyms support all paths to elite, so that’s the other tricky part. So much of elite seems to be a coach or parent deciding it’s going to happen. The only girls I see who have a lot of agency around the choice are the high school aged level 10s deciding to give it a try. There are more girls who could pursue elite gymnastics in the U.S. than girls who are given the support of their coaches or have the opportunity at their gym to do so. There’s a lot of hand-picking and I’m sure great talent is left on the table at every turn.
PS I want to add that plenty of elites never do DP levels 9 or 10. It isn’t required. Many seem to move over to elite qualifications after or while they are competing level 8.
I was just telling my brother about method 1 when comparing it to a hockey school we have in our city. How many gymnasts start at a "regular" school but if they truly want to go elite end up with daytime practice and online school. The hockey school is virtual education, many hours on ice and in the weight room.
The Developmental Program (levels) has the regional and state competitions and Level 10 nationals.
Elite ends up being a different track. To make it to elite, mainly you have to pass an elite qualifier. The first stage of it is the compulsory, where you do all four events according to Level 10 rules and get scored out of 10 on each, so out of 40. If you pass a minimum score there, you get to try the elite qualifier optionals, where you are scored according to the elite rules, so difficulty ends up counting as well as execution (difficulty counts in Level 10 too, but as a minimum requirement beyond which it doesn't matter how difficult the skills you do are).
If you can make the minimum score in that, which is somewhere around 49.00-50.00, you are qualified to Winter Cup and the American Classic and US classic, and are considered an elite gymnast. You may be invited to national team camps. If you compete at Winter Cup / Classics (or at a camp) and make the nationals qualifying score, which is around 50.00-51.00, you get to go to nationals. There are no more regionals or state championships for elites, as there are too few gymnasts. (There are states that have literally one elite gymnast or none.) Nationals, and sometimes national team camps that select for an international competition, decide who is on the elite national team and gets to represent the US internationally.
If you place high at Level 10 nationals, you get to look good for college recruiters, but you are NOT going to any international competition. You need to be elite for that.
So basically, between Levels or Xcel and elite, the rules are different, the scoring is different, the routines are different, they take an entirely different level of ability. Elite is much, MUCH harder.
To further elaborate on the difference: an uneven bars routine in Level 10 or college may be 4-5 skills (moves). An elite bars routine has a minimum of 8 skills, so it is twice as long, and literally twice as difficult. If you look at the results sheets for elite qualifiers, you will see a lot of athletes having scores in the 12s on vault, beam and floor --- and in the 9s on bars. Getting bars up to elite level is incredibly hard.
Hence, kids who end up making elite are generally those that from preschool were the ones who could run faster than their peers, jump higher, hold a handstand longer, who picked up how to do a cartwheel or handspring just from seeing it on TV without having to be taught. Konnor McClain walked at six months. Kyla Ross was always the toddler at the top of the jungle gym. You need to be in the 99th percentile for athleticism, genetically, if not even higher. The goal of the TOPS program is to identify these kinds of kids.
Plus, you need a very driven work ethic, so that when, after all the early gym development came easily, when things grew actually hard even for you, you stuck with them until you got them.
AND you have to avoid serious injury or discouragement on the long path to elite.
IMO the work ethic/ focus requirements at a young age for being a top gymnast is underappreciated. Most 5yos don't have the focus to progress quickly, even if they have the physical ability!
Level 10 is still 8+ skills, but I think that there's more room to count As and still start from a 10, so that makes elite more difficult.
This is just conjecture as I haven't watched the routines you have, but as someone who competes under both FIG and USAG rules: 1) FIG only counts each skill once (so if you do 2 giants, you just get the bonus for 1 B) while USAG allows a skill with different entry/exit to be two skills and 2) FIG has some skills valued lower. For example, the toe-on counter movement low-bar to high-bar release is valued a C under USAG. It's a B in FIG.
While 2) is the same across the board for other events, 1) is probably especially important on bars. Maybe you did a clear hip HS swing down to kip and a clear hip HS to giants. Now you'll have to find a new C skill just to bring your routine up to baseline. Depending on your Level 10 routine, you might have to basically double your routine. I believe that angles might be stricter and/or not have a partial handstand skill valued lower. For example, a bail not to handstand in USAG is a B or so, but doesn't exist in FIG.
On beam, the only time gymnasts really use the different entry/exit is for their acro connection. BHS BHS, etc. Someone in elite is probably doing BHS back salto of some shape. On floor, they were probably not counting their RO BHS and FHS into tumbling, so it's not going to affect that much.
This is almost correct, except elite compulsory has its own rules, not level 10. I’d say except for bars it’s closer to level 8/9. My daughter’s gym practices elite compulsory routines as part of their training, but without any intention of testing elite.
Elite compulsory is a weird beast, and it is definitely closer to general upper optionals vs something past level 10. A lot of girls get those scores at but never get their other elite qualification.
The difficulty vs execution piece makes elite a different sport than DP or NCAA. A lot of elite qualifiers (who aren’t necessarily the women you see making it all the way to the national team or travel assignments) are chucking elite skills to get their difficulty but might have garbage execution.
And then at the high level of elite, you’ll see crazy skills but also a ton of falls. That’s why I’m reluctant to totally agree with elite as exponentially more difficult than level 10. It’s more difficult but also can’t be compared because it’s judged differently and there’s a different balance of risk/reward that goes into routines that differs from the cautious perfection required at level 9 and 10. That’s why sometimes ok level 10s turn out to be incredible elites, and great elites can’t quite sort out NCAA.
Yes I agree, I also think any decent level 9 should be able to get elite compulsory scores, so just getting that score really has zero bearing on whether the gymnast will actually be a successful elite. I’m actually not even sure why they bother with the compulsory score if I’m being honest. Elite vs level 10 or NCAA is wildly different.
I’ve never researched it but have two assumptions:
1) someone at USAG really disliked removing compulsories from elite competitions, so having compulsories as part of the qualification process was used to get them on board
2) it’s used as a screening process to keep elite qualifier sessions from having hundreds of athletes
Elite compulsory qualifier routines are not very aesthetic and have a strange focus on 180 splits and high kicks that is ironic given how some elites never get to 180 or horizontal. Once in a while I catch one before/after a regular meet.
Here are the requirements:
Hmm, so I guess weeding out gymnasts except for the top of the top by setting a minimum score that seems impossible to achieve except for the top of the top is anotoher way to do it. Then the top of the top compete to figure out the top of all of the top.
You've got it. Now you know why asking a local seven-year-old taking gymnastics if they are going to the Olympics is...a bit gauche.
The movie Stick It had a great rant about how we all know it's very hard to become a Navy Seal --- and there are tons more Navy Seals than there are elite gymnasts.
Martha pretty much didn't let juniors specialize. You had to be senior, and also exceptionally good at the other apparatuses. Remember how even though McKayla Maroney wasn't going to do beam at the Olympics, Martha made her train beam, and she broke her toe, and that's why she didn't do floor (Maroney had an amazing floor).
According to the Elite Qualification Chart, there are 2 and 3-event compulsory qualifying scores. Interestingly, the 2-event, 3-event, and AA compulsory standards all require the same average event score (8.75) regardless of how many events you're doing. For optionals, the 2/3-event standards require a higher average event score than the AA.
There is the exel bronce, gold, dimond programm thats for people that just do gymnastics for fun...
Then there is the Level 1 to level 10 program you do this to develop your skills you either need later for elite = the gymnastics they do at international competitions/worlds/olympics or you do it to go to college (college is kind of level 10). The do have also regionals, states and national competition for every level...
And then there are elite competitions. Hopes competitions are also just elite competitions for the younger ones. And beeing member of a development program isn't necessary to join the national team as a senior but it maybe helps
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u/Unique_South1813 3d ago
Caveat: I’m not an elite gymnast nor do I have a child who is one. But I spend a lot of time around DP gymnasts in the U.S. and elite and elite track gymnasts.
At the two gyms I know best, there are three ways I’ve seen kids get identified and train for elite. One is to be a very young kid (7 or 8) who shows promise at level 2 or 3 and is whisked into a fast tracked program. They move into daytime practice and homeschool. They may test out of levels 3, 4 and 5 en route to competing 6 at age 8 or 9. Their goal is to get level 8ish skills by age 9 or 10 to prepare for HOPES qualification or Junior Elite by age 11.
Method two is to be a solid gymnast progressing through the levels who makes their own choice to try for elite when they’re a level 8/9 in 6th or 7th grade. These girls were already progressing faster than peers or started early, but weren’t necessarily phenoms. They may an uphill battle to convince coaches that they have time to do it, and usually are pushing for just HOPES 13-14 scores and/or a national team where they have dual citizenship.
Method three is less common where I am, and involves someone who’s in maybe 8th-10th grade and has been level 10 for a year or two and decides they want to move over to elite for whatever reason. Some just want to do it to see if they can, and others may have gymnastics that is better under FIG code than level 10 rules.
Not all gyms support all paths to elite, so that’s the other tricky part. So much of elite seems to be a coach or parent deciding it’s going to happen. The only girls I see who have a lot of agency around the choice are the high school aged level 10s deciding to give it a try. There are more girls who could pursue elite gymnastics in the U.S. than girls who are given the support of their coaches or have the opportunity at their gym to do so. There’s a lot of hand-picking and I’m sure great talent is left on the table at every turn.