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First female teen to win Ohio masonry competition bumped from national contest | The Columbus Dispatch
Wonder if this is sexism or if 3rd place was close to the circle of power.
Shania Clifford, a 17-year-old from Scioto County, became the first female to win a gold medal in the SkillsUSA Ohio masonry competition in late April.
But in mid-May, Clifford found out she would not be attending the next level of the competition, a national leadership and skills conference held in Louisville, Kentucky.
Judges in the masonry program, a field usually dominated by men, originally awarded Clifford first place by a whopping 72 points.
“She had the best plumb there,” Moore said. “Two or three corners were perfect.” Plumb refers to how straight a vertical edge is.
“This error affected results for several students,” Halpin said in the email, “and resulted in the rankings showing an incorrect winner of the competition.” Halpin added that no errors were made on the judges’ scoring sheets.
Clifford said: “My question was, ‘How can you override a judge’s decision? Why even have them?’“
She was relegated to third place by the re-scoring, switching places with the original third-place finisher.
Wonder if this is sexism or if 3rd place was close to the circle of power.