All-Star Canadian Team "robbed" At Worlds - Thoughts?

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I am unsure of which part of the story is the biggest mistake - there are plenty to choose from. The whole thing is just disappointing.

We try to build up our end-of-year events to be the greatest part of our sport, but they are just not very good yet. Worlds has been going for 16 years and it is still not a world-class event. There have been improvements, but it is nowhere close to what our awesome sport deserves. It pains me to say that because I genuinely like and respect many of the people behind the scenes.

The central problem is that they just aren't a full-time event producers and have too much pride to "officially" hire someone else to run it. The borrow pieces of it, but refuse to use the very best parts of Varsity events because they fear looking too biased. (Meanwhile there are legitimate concerns about Varsity/USASF entanglements that go unresolved.).

They use a hobbled-together once-a-year system with virtually no standards instead of using (a modified version of) the battle-tested, robust scoring system that has been honed over thousands of events - that is pure insanity to me. Also, not hiring the top event runners to oversee the event (Justin Carrier, etc) and instead using people who run one event a year is craziness. Would you want someone spotting you on a double full that only spots once a year or would rather have someone who does it week-in week-out?
 
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My point is they were let through due to the tie. At some point the tie should have been broken due to the rule regardless if they had already competed in finals. Something should have been said.
Especially if the whole small coed and international 3rd place thing had already occurred. Dont know if it did by the time 005 competed..?

I also think its unfair to strip a team of bronze who have never placed in worlds(?) but then not strip a team of gold who should have not made finals...

I think its usasf saving face at this point..

Small Coed was the second to last division so the 005 thing had definitely already happened. The Bronze issue happened right in the middle of it, I think before 005 was given a globe.
 
I am unsure of which part of the story is the biggest mistake - there are plenty to choose from. The whole thing is just disappointing.

We try to build up our end-of-year events to be the greatest part of our sport, but they are just not very good yet. Worlds has been going for 16 years and it is still not a world-class event. There have been improvements, but it is nowhere close to what our awesome sport deserves. It pains me to say that because I genuinely like and respect many of the people behind the scenes.

The central problem is that they just aren't a full-time event producers and have too much pride to "officially" hire someone else to run it. The borrow pieces of it, but refuse to use the very best parts of Varsity events because they fear looking too biased. Using a hobbled-together once-a-year system that has virtually no standards instead of using a modified version of the battle-tested, robust scoring system that has been honed over thousands of events is pure insanity to me. Also, not hiring the top event runners to oversee the event (Justin Carrier, etc) and instead using people who run one event a year is craziness.

I'm just curious, if you know this going in, why do you bother bringing your teams?
 
I'm just curious, if you know this going in, why do you bother bringing your teams?
Because then Cheer Athletics would experience a mass exodus of its cheerleaders.

Somehow, as an industry, we’ve allowed a few people to dictate what should be the most important competition of the season - Worlds.

I’d imagine to most elite and premier allstar cheerleaders, what’s the point if we can’t go to Worlds?
 
I'm just curious, if you know this going in, why do you bother bringing your teams?

Same reason we reluctantly go to Summit - our customers demand it.

If we just boycotted, we fear losing a ton of customers to our local competitors and would have to lay off a bunch of coaches.

(This is the same basic answer that you will get in private if you ask any "big" gym owner.)
 
I am completely bemused by this solution. Why make Co-Gold Medal champions? I get that IASF is acquiescing to Cheer Canada, who put forth this solution in their complaint. And absent any true solution, I suppose that giving them what they requested is the path of least resistance. But doesn’t this just give the impression of further impropriety? Now it appears that the IASF favored a program from USA by not implementing a tie breaker, and a program from Canada by solving the issue according to their proposal. All illusions of any kind of impartiality just disappear completely. It just sits wrong with me, it shows a lack of independence and exposes the weakness of the organization. At this point, why not just have each program sit together and vote on the winners themselves?

ETA: PCT not Cheer Canada
 
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I am completely bemused by this solution. Why make Co-Gold Medal champions? I get that IASF is acquiescing to Cheer Canada, who put forth this solution in their complaint. And absent any true solution, I suppose that giving them what they requested is the path of least resistance. But doesn’t this just give the impression of further impropriety? Now it appears that the IASF favored a program from USA by not implementing a tie breaker, and a program from Canada by solving the issue according to their proposal. All illusions of any kind of impartiality just disappear completely. It just sits wrong with me, it shows a lack of independence and exposes the weakness of the organization. At this point, why not just have each program sit together and vote on the winners themselves?

Just a note, CCI backed PCT in what they wanted. CCI also didn’t file a complaint or suggest the solution. They just backed their member gym.
 
This is what I get for listening to a combination or FB/Twitter...thank you for explaining that to me.

If 005 should have never been in finals then their Gold should have retroactively been taken away. This may sound harsh, but you can not want Olympic level recognition and not do what the Olympics would have likely done. While the red flag, at 005 going through, was originally raised on the board and social media in near real-time...I am quite confident coaches likely brought it up at the event in real time too. For it to go long enough for Canada to be able to consult lawyers for any change/ruling to happen just shows exactly what level of poopshow World's is in the scoring/legality department.

And fwiw, I would say the same about the other 'bronze' champion issues. If a team was awarded a medal their team didn't actually earn, it should be taken back and given where it should have gone. This co-champion ideal should never be accepted at a World's level competition.

This!

And the fact that we try to justify having “co-champions” by saying things like “it isn’t fair to take it away,” is the reason main stream sports think we are bullshit.
 
After reading all of this, all that I can say is BSB deserved/deserves better. Smh.
I agree that if your going to award one tie then you need to award all of them. Bsb and prodigy was the only actual tie, to my knowledge, which confuses me even more...
 
I agree that if your going to award one tie then you need to award all of them. Bsb and prodigy was the only actual tie, to my knowledge, which confuses me even more...
The rules as written were followed for BSB and Prodigy and were not followed in IOC semi-finals. The "fix" for IOC5 didn't correct the original issue - it appeased people (I'm not saying it's right or it's wrong - just stating what happened)
What frustrates me most about all of this is now you have people coming out of the woodwork (from one gym in particular) demanding that their division was scored incorrectly and there should be a review of those divisions as well. This huge mistake has carried over from one division to several and has cheapened the Worlds experience for everyone.
 
I agree that if your going to award one tie then you need to award all of them. Bsb and prodigy was the only actual tie, to my knowledge, which confuses me even more...
There was also a tie for the bronze medal in Senior Open 5, which was also broken correctly using the tie-breaking rules.
 
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