My only caveat on particularly bikini competition is the sex-aspect of it. As a veteran bodybuilding competitor, it gags me to hear cat calls from the audience when I see Bikini Shows. I've walked out of shows before because of it. It sets women's progress in physique back 40 years to hear that shit, reducing it to a wet t-shirt contest during spring break.. I've also seen a number of bikini competitors who have completely bought into the 'sex sells" thing and some of the posing makes me want to start throwing $20 bills on stage and wonder why there isn't a pole on stage.
That said, as the mentor to a young competitor in this particularly sex-oriented category, I would continue to encourage her to focus on the "quality competitor" aspect of it, leveraging good presentation vs provocative presentation. It can be a fine line between physique show & TnA. Where there have been younger competitors, the "young TnA" aspect can be particularly provocative. Just sayin. Its the nature of the competition - individual competitors may be involved as truly good-athlete-great-competitor entrants, but you cannot remove the sex-oriented aspects of those involved and around these competitions. Very important that your daughter not get caught up in that. I personally don't feel women at the very least, younger than 16 need to be on stage in bikini competitions.
Also relative to Nationals, as you are probably aware, there's a HYUGE jump between winning a local show vs a national show. Shitloads of local competitors qualify for nationals, but get there and get their asses handed to them. For the money & time, my personal recommendation would be to get more competitions under her belt, both from a maturity level as well as from an experience level, and maybe do one of the Jr level national shows like Jr USAs in the early summer next year, if any.
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