I can understand why they thought it was below par or they just wanted to see it's potential played out before judging...I may have misheard but it seemed that when they were researching the standards for roths from the recent awards going back a few years..they found the records to be inconsistent..I saw some of the pictures myself..and either the photographs were of poor quality (which is true in some cases) or the flowers were not up to standards. Dimensions were all over the place. There is so much hype around roth standards that dont seem to bear out in the recent records, that perhaps it was best to err on the side of caution. I do feel if this plant gets an award down the line, there will be absolutely no doubt about it's worthiness. The judges really liked the color ..but felt the form needed improvement as well as the arrangement. I think if this plant bloomed in the summertime (more light), it may have done better...but the plant may have been tricked into blooming with the minimum light it needs to do so..we did have a weird winter with lots of sunny days ..but even in seattle a winter sunny day is not so sunny (because of how low the sun is in the sky)