USASF ANNOUNCES POSSIBLE BIG CHANGES FOR THE 2022-23 SEASON3 min to read

USASF ANNOUNCES POSSIBLE BIG CHANGES FOR THE 2022-23 SEASON

By Steve Pawlyk

Published October 20, 2021

Cheer is back and so are some new rules from the USASF that would come into effect for the 2022-2023 season.  Many of these changes are rather big and would affect almost every team around the country.  There’s even talks about removing certain Worlds divisions. Here is a brief overview of some of the proposed changes:

USASF 2022-23 Changes News

Age grid & Division changes

“USASF age grid is calculated by year of birth. ICU and IASF age grids are calculated by age of year end competition. Should they be aligned?”

Meaning possible changes to the age grid, as the USASF age grid is not calculated in the same way as the ICU and IASF one.

Remove Senior Open 6 division

Reasoning: International Open 6 division may have the exact same roster. Senior Open 6 was created because of uncertainty with where IASF was headed with scoring, rules, etc.

Allow IOSC and SOSC to have 5 males

Reasoning: The additional male athlete will allow for options when creating stunt groups that can complete at a competitive level with more age appropriate athletes. There’s a need to fly more aged appropriate flyers and another male will help field just that. The average team of 24 will do 5 stunts, this would allow for potentially putting 1 male in every stunt group. This would also allow for teams with stronger female stunting to add males with elite tumbling to join to help them in the tumbling categories. In these divisions the males are showcased heavily, one more male that may add to a category the team lacks in as a whole. There is such a jump from 5-12 males in the Large Open Coed 6 and 5-16 males in International Large 6 & 7, giving the Small divisions one more male will help close that gap.

Change Senior Level 6 Worlds division sizes to Small 5-14, Medium 15-22, and Large 23- 30

Reasoning: This would allow all senior 6 divisions to have two leftover athletes after stunt groups are created. It also separates each division by 8 athletes. Currently we are allowed 38 athletes in level 6 but only 30 in levels 1-5. This does not make sense. There is more chance of injury with 38 athletes on the floor tumbling. This is especially true when these athletes are performing level 6 tumbling. The max team size should be lowered to 30 so it matches all other elite levels and reduces the chance of injury. Also, most gyms cannot field a team with 30+ athletes. It is not needed.

Reasoning: It would help level out divisions at worlds. Currently, Large Senior has 4 teams and Extra Small has about 50. This change would essentially combine current medium and large teams into one division and create a better competition. The small and extra small teams would round out the new medium and small divisions.

DI/DII Discussion:

  1. Only count Elite athletes and lower the D#
  2. Count by location instead of program (Possibly in combination with suggestion
  3. Raise the D#

For a list of all proposed changes click here

USASF 2022-2023 Changes

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