Meet Review: Tampa Classic

Indoor:
-Overall pretty good. The floor I thought was ehhh. Overall it was good but the first turn seemed to be a little slippery, at least compared to the rest of the floor. It was the first meet I had to put on oranges (atoms) and there was a fair amount of mixing of softer wheels for a lot of skaters. Still good skating.
-I didn't think the meet was quite as big as it has been in the past, but that being said I don't think it necessarily was lacking talent either.
-The officiating was what it was. Not bad, but definitely room for improvement. I felt honestly, that to combat the criticism in recent years that the officials didn't wear skates they put the officials on skates.. But that didn't automatically make them roll every race or perform any better then they could have on foot. It did however, allow them to at least attempt to make calls during a race. I felt like a few times there were calls that were made that should not have been. Like when a skater puts on a little show to try and gain the officials attention and then they made the call. But there were also times that calls could have been made that weren't. That will always be the case, sometimes more or less severe but everywhere you go you will never manage to combat that problem.
-I feel like it is one of the premier events to skate World Class at but some of the other divisions could be a little deeper. But you can't exactly expect much more when there are two other US Easter meets and an international competition at the same time as well.
Outdoor:
-Same place so the track was about the same as it usually is. The skies were clear so when it got closer to mid-day and the sun had just been beating on the track the turns got really slick, at least for the world class skaters.
-Definitely good competition. Has had deeper fields in the past but for this year, it was good so there isn't much to say about that.
-World class was once again a pretty big event. It's unfortunate that more senior ladies (outdoor) were not present (besides those who moved up this year from junior) but hey, when you work that's what happens. Senior men is hard to say much about. There were a good deal of Juniors that skated world class but the rest of them skated Jr. World Class which in the end does them no good. They all need to race each other to really judge your competition. Other then that I think Senior Men was really strong.

All in all it was a great meet. It always fields a strong World Class group of skaters and has the outdoor portion. This year especially the outdoor portion should be taken seriously, but not as an indicator on how you will do at Outdoor Nationals because it is 11 weeks before Outdoor Nationals!! So judge where you are at but realize that you still have to train hard if you want to be successful.