You might consider this post just made by Grossano on another topic:
Originally Posted by gsrossano
This is a federal law passed in the 1978 (full name now is Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act) that regulates NGBs in the U.S., and provides certain legal protections to athletes. Among other things it requires athletes have at least 20% of the voting power within an NGB, and governs the rights of athletes when being selected for World and Olympic teams. It basically says that selection to an Olympic team must follow the order of finish in the selection competition or the NGB better has a superb reason why not.
If order of finish is not followed the athletes kept off the team can sue the NGB to get on, and force compliance with order of finish. So if Sasha was put on the team without having competed, or placed too low to make the team, the girl affected would be able to sue to get on the team, and would almost certainly win her case -- since helping out a failed comeback attempt after a four year absence with no competition record other than Nationals would most likely not be viewed as a superb reason.
Basically the law says the NGBs can't screw the athletes when it comes to selecting the Olympic team.
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I think this might also apply to Alissa - if she finished 1st or 2nd and they tried to bump her. Maybe Gossano will comment on that possibilty.
Very interesting, but that's kind of what I though all along. The only thing that's hard to gauge is the judging, Alissa last year won by a substantial margin, but could have easily finished 3rd without a lot of controversy, she only landed 3 triples in the free. So if Alissa has a repeat of last year this year, assuming everyone else did the same as well, will she finish 1st, 2nd, or 3rd?
My take on nationals last year was that the winner could have been Alissa, Rachael or Caroline. The second place finisher could have been Alissa, Rachael, Caroline, or Ashley. The third place finisher could have been Alissa, Rachael, Caroline, or Ashley.
Any of the above results would have been accepted with little questioning I believe, and Alissa winning last year was probably the most controversial situation.
So the question is, who gets first and second? If it was a repeat of last year, Ashley maybe made too many mistakes to be in second, but then there is still the question of Caroline, Rachael and Alissa. Caroline is very slow has the mule kick, Rachael does not have great spins, and Alissa only landed 3 triples. A case could be made for 1.) Rachael 2.) Caroline and 3.) Alissa because Caro and Rach landed twice as many triples, but depending on if Caroline is going slower than usual or her jumps are particularly tiny that day, the results could be 1.) Rachael 2.) Alissa 3.) Caroline. Then there's the issue of Alissa coming in 1st in the short with a big lead, so the judges decided to give her 1st.
Essentially, it's all up to the judges. A situation like this puts them all on equal footing:
1.) Rachael has her 3-3 DG in LP, hits everything else
2.) Alissa wins SP with big lead and does 4 clean triples in the free OR she wins SP just barely or comes in second in the SP and does 5 clean triples in the free
3.) Ashley gets a score no lower than 50 SP, comes in 1st or 2nd in the free
4.) Caroline hits her 3-3 and does all 7 triples in the long.
5.) Mirai gets no UR calls in the long
The judges can really do whatever they want which is frustrating, but if they see that someone can't handle the pressure of this years nats I don't think they should hold her up.
The Olympics is probably 10x the pressure of nationals and the judges should realize this
(Of course it won't happen, but I'm overdramatizing to illustrate a point)
