I agree with atwirler. Here's how I view it.

Not everyone has a goal of going to Nationals, but why should they feel they are not welcome to compete at a state or regional level? There might be reasons we don't know about preventing them from attending a week-long event that could be far away from their home. It's unfair to judge someone (negatively) of 'taking away' a spot from someone else unless you actually hear THEM say that they are purposely entering to win and take the spot away from someone else. (I bet that's a rare case when you've personally heard someone state it.)

Since the beginner and intermediate pageants allow the next person in line to enter as the representative, the spot is not 'lost.' And, couldn't you say that the 2nd place winner has a more realistic idea of how much she has to work to do well at the national level, if she was not the 1st place winner locally? If she didn't have the 1st place contestant to compete against, she might think she's in good shape. Just a thought. Also, for the beginner and intermediate, it seems that the 2 win max rule probably made the biggest impact as someone is unlikely to try to win twice in one year since they can only be the rep at nationals the one time.

As far as the advanced division, with 3 reps and no ability to pass the spots down after 3rd place....think of the old rule that only allowed one rep for advanced. Haven't we already addressed the problem of one person winning twice by the fact that up to 3 can go from each state and up to 3 from each region (plus, the regions are smaller than they were -- there are more of them -- so again, more spots are available across the country).

I think the idea of wanting more competition experience is valid today more than ever. In many areas of the country it seems as though there just aren't very many contests. If you find one a month that is within driving distance, that's a lot. It used to be that you could find AT LEAST ONE EVERY WEEKEND that was within driving distance, from maybe October through May. It also seems like a lot of state and regional contests have limited open events so to not enter an event means maybe going 2 months without a contest.

Instead of feeling this negativity towards other people, teach lessons to your own children/students. Not lessons about how others are robbing people of spots, but about how not twirling at the 2nd contest can be a plus for another twirler. The other lesson is that while we try to protect our children and give them the best experiences possible, it is an unrealistic view of the world to let them think that everyone gets a chance to win once. If they want to be a representative at nationals, then they need to put in hard work over time to achieve that goal. Isn't that the take-away?