Dear USA Gymnastics Leaders,
It was brought to my attention that there has been a misinterpretation of the rule regarding the number of springs allowed/required in the spring board. I have discussed this issue with the National Technical Chair as well as the National Xcel Chair and we all agree with the explanation below:
The statement listed in the Rules and Polices (below) is quite accurate; however, there have been others who have not interpreted it in the way it was written.
- 55 (Xcel chapter) and P. 91 (JO chapter)
“All Meet Directors must arrange to have boards that accommodate gymnasts of varying weight. Any boards brought in to a competition must be assigned to an event and must be available to all gymnasts in that session for warm-up and competition. The following 3-4 spring configurations for the springboard have been approved and may be utilized in USA Gymnastics sanctioned competitions:”
Here are the two issues which have arisen:
- Interpretation that the board must ONLY be used with 3 or 4 springs and some judges have informed the coaches they must take out additional springs to ONLY have 3 or 4 springs and that using more than 3 or 4 springs is a deduction. Please refer people to the following sentence: ”…springboard have been approved and may be utilized in USA Gymnastics sanctioned competitions.” It does not say MUST be utilized in that manner.
- Coaches do not want to take the back springs out of the board to accommodate the illustrations in the Rules and Policies. Only the 3 illustrations for a 3-4 spring board are allowed for the use of 3 or 4 springs in a springboard. The coach is not allowed to come up with a different configuration that suits his/her needs. This would result in a deduction of 0.30that will be taken for using incorrect apparatus specifications. (P. 7 of the Code of Points)
Thank you in advance for assisting in passing along the correct interpretation of this rule.
Tom Koll, NJOCC, Cheryl Hamilton, NTCC, Claudia Kretschmer, NXCC
