Let me try to be more specific...I take pictures of my daughter's gymnastics meets. Flashes are prohibited, but I don't really get close enough for it to work anyway. The good side is that the nicest pictures come from her poses anyway, so not as much need to "stop action". Lighting is kind of hit or miss.
The camera I use right now is the Canon A540. I set it to 800 ISO and use aperature priority. It would work if I didn't also try to zoom. But since I'm not usually all that close maybe 30 ft away from her if I can get close, I can't help but try to make her fill the frame. Otherwise I get a lovely picture of everything else.

My old camera a Sony Cybershot (2.1MP, but can't remember the model) worked surprisingly well. The only reason I replaced it was the battery was shot and I didn't want to spend $50 on a new one when there were other issues. From the time I would press the button until the camera got around to recording the picture, the moment was over. I got good at anticipating her routine to get the "pretty shot", but I missed more than I hit. Quite honestly, the quality of the picture was not that bad for only being 2.1MP. Certainly I would have liked more, but the shots were pretty clear.

Thanks for all the input.