Welcome to the third installment of You Asked, The Gymternet Answered! We apologize if we haven’t gotten to your question yet, but we are trying to answer them in order. Something you want to know? Ask us anonymously by going through this contact form below!

Kocian, Ross, Biles, and Skinner are all class of 2015. Ross and Biles both said they intend to defer college entrance, but do you think Skinner and Kocian will do the same? Also, do you think Dowell will head to Oklahoma in January?

I think Skinner is in it for the long-haul, no matter what happens. She really wants 2016 and already seems to have deferment plans in mind. Kocian seems more day-to-day to me, though I haven’t ever asked her. She’s one who could go either way, so they might just take it one step at a time rather than decide right now what they’re going to do. As for Dowell, she’s always had the ‘take it one step at a time’ plan, so I think if she makes this year’s team and succeeds in Nanning, she’ll probably defer. But if she doesn’t make the team or it doesn’t seem like she’ll go further in elite, she might decide to go in January.

Have you heard anything about Gabby Jupp lately? She was on a roll in 2013 and I can’t believe we haven’t seen her since! Is she training regularly now or does she have a competition comeback date yet?

Yes! She just competed at the first selection camp for Great Britain’s World Championships team and according to her coach, she “smashed it!” It was her first competition in 16 months and she could be a potential dark horse for this year’s team for sure. With Rebecca Tunney out, Jupp might be a huge help.

I was wondering what you think would have happened in 2012 if Kyla still had her Amanar? Would she have been put in as the third all-arounder? Aly still beats her in terms of her d-score with her floor but maybe Kyla would have worked more towards upgrading there if she thought she could contend?

I don’t think she would have…when she had her Amanar, it was always a little scary on the landing, so she definitely would have lost tenths there…Raisman’s landings weren’t exactly gorgeous but she at least stood them up with no problems. Ross often looked like she was going to twist her knee into the ground. Plus, I don’t think she would have come close on floor, and while her bars and beam were good, Aly’s beam and floor were stronger. I think Ross would have closed the gap slightly with an Amanar, but still think Raisman would have had the edge.

What do you think has been the single most impressive piece of gymnastics in this quad so far? It can be from any country!

I would have to say everything Simone Biles does impresses me to no end. Especially on floor. Speaking of floor, I’m impressed that two girls are doing double-twisting double layouts. Larisa Iordache is impressive, especially on beam where she’s going so far above and beyond. These are probably most impressive to me so far…oh, and Yao Jinnan’s mo salto! I also give the German girls on bars honorable mention. Especially Lisa Hill…I never expected her to get this strong!

Skinner no longer looks like she wants to die before her last pass! Do you think she’ll be able to build enough endurance by Worlds to be the floor silver medal frontrunner?

Yes! I think this is definitely a possibility. The cool thing about Skinner is that she definitely gets stronger as the year goes on. She gets really strong really quickly, so when she fell at Classics this year I’m pretty sure my reaction was like, eh, she’ll definitely get it by nationals. I like that she’s super flexible with changing passes while at the same time, she works on getting her endurance up for when she needs it up. I don’t know if a silver medal will be entirely in her grasp – especially because I think there are a few others who might look stronger than her internationally – but she has definitely improved and has the ability to keep it up.

Which gyms do you think provide the best all-around fundamentals? Like, we know Chow just can’t train vault, while Parkettes always seem to have good bar swing whether they’re natural bar workers or not. If you want your gymnast to have the best basics, where do you send them?

Hmm…I’m gonna go with Gym-Max as my favorite, not just because of Kyla Ross but because most girls I see coming out of that gym have really strong basics…even McKayla Maroney, who isn’t really a standout on anything but vault but when she does go on bars or beam or floor, she shows that she has a really solid understanding as to how things are supposed to look. The same goes for any of the girls Gym-Max has placed in top NCAA programs. I also think MG Elite does really well here…I remember Laurie Hernandez’s compulsory routines in 2011 just blowing me away.

Does Marta know something we don’t? Why would they implement a stick bonus for domestic meets? Does she know the FIG is gonna do away with the leap bonus, so she’s getting the jump on everyone by making the girls stick it now instead of later?

This actually wasn’t something brought on by Marta but by the elite committee. I think Mary Lee Tracy is the one who brought it up, actually. Basically, if they encourage their girls to stick by giving them bonuses at home, they’ll actually train sticking the landings so they don’t lose important tenths when they go to international competitions. If you get them thinking “I could win a national title if I get an extra tenth from sticking my dismount!” then they’ll ALWAYS work to stick the dismount, even when they won’t get those extra tenths at Worlds.

What do you think of someone like her getting a gymnastics scholarship for college when she can clearly afford to pay for her education?

I think gymnasts who work hard enough to become elite athletes talented enough to earn spots in huge division I programs deserve their athletic scholarships because they earned them on merit. Granted, most gymnasts tend to come from families who earn a good living because it’s an expensive sport, so even if they’re not as wealthy as other families, they can still probably afford to send their kids to college because if their kids were top level J.O. or elite gymnasts, they probably spent the equivalent of college tuition on gymnastics every year. But the kids were the ones who reached a level only a tiny percentage of gymnasts reach, and that scholarship in the end came more from their talent and hard work than anything else. It’s a difficult subject because so many people can’t afford college, but it’s not like she’s stealing the scholarship away from them, if that makes sense? It’s an athletic scholarship set aside for a top level gymnast…I know my college had both merit and need-based scholarships set aside, so an athletic scholarship is something a student earned on his or her own merit no matter what their family background is, whereas those who can’t afford to pay for an education can still qualify for need-based if they aren’t able to get academic or athletic rewards. It’s tricky, because often those who qualify for merit scholarships got to that point because their families had the money to send them to top high schools or to ensure they had the best athletic training, so a lot of recipients can probably afford college…but that’s a whole other socioeconomic topic for another time and place.

Do you know why the USA didn’t use Locklear on beam at Pan Ams? She seems like she’d be a better pick than Desch or Hundley.

I was thinking about this, since she scored well domestically here. The only thing I can imagine is that they already know she’s going to Worlds as a bar specialist and there’s no way they’d use her anywhere else, whereas they wanted to at least give Desch and Hundley a try at beam just in case one might prove worthy for the Worlds team.

Edit: According to a source who was at the meet, Locklear was injured during podium training which is why she only went up on bars.

Aly Raisman is landing handspring 1/1 vaults onto a mat in the pit. What’s the point of her having a second vault, especially that second vault?

Do you mean she’s doing handspring with just a full twist off? Or a handspring layout full? Because if it’s just a handspring full, it’s possible she’s just working a more simplistic vault so she can maybe add a handspring vault in the future. If it’s a handspring layout full then damn girl, maybe she’s trying to work up to a Rudi or that elusive handspring double full Alicia Sacramone tried to get named for herself before getting injured in 2011! I think Raisman with a second vault would be very smart. It would make her much more valuable to the team, especially if she only ends up coming back strong on one or two events rather than in the all-around.

How do you think the US team looked at Pan Ams?

I thought considering the fact that they were largely a B team, they looked pretty good. Yes, there were falls and lots of big mistakes, but for the most part, those who looked really rough aren’t the ones being seriously considered for the Worlds team. I think Madison Kocian really needed to prove that she could hit beam in addition to bars and she kind of showed that she could be consistent there, even if her event finals routine wasn’t super clean. And I think that while it wasn’t the most solid meet for anyone, they now have an idea as to how they’ll be judged internationally and know what they need to fix before October.

If a girl was to get hurt at Worlds (like Maggie Nichols did at Pan Ams), would another girl on the team be able to compete for her in the remaining events even if she was not one of the three on the start list?

Yes, as long as she’s not the alternate. If the alternate is not put in by a certain date, she can’t compete, period. Like, for the Olympics I believe they had to decide whether they wanted to call in an alternate by the Friday before qualifications, so if someone was injured on a team after that Friday, they’d have to find a replacement from among the athletes on the actual team. If someone is injured during the competition, they choose from anyone else there last-minute. I believe this might incur deductions, because if you change your line-up last minute it goes against the CoP, but I’m not sure if they make an exception if an athlete is injured during the meet. Anyone else want to chime in here?

Edit: According to Scott Bregman, you can also sub an alternate in between qualifications and team finals. He linked me to the FIG Technical Regulations, which states “It is understood that 24 hours prior to the beginning of Competition IV, federations can replace gymnasts, but only from the max. 6+1 gymnasts accredited at the time of 24 hours prior to Competition I.” Also, if an injury occurs during warm-ups or competition, “a substitution is only allowed if the Superior Jury is immediately informed and if the replacement is designated exactly into the place drawn.”

What do you think we’ll see first – a quad twist on floor or the TTY?

I think the TTY will happen first, if only because not very many people attempt the 3.5 on floor…and those that do tend to not look great while doing it! They either underrotate, whip their leg around to make it look like their bodies are moving as well, or straight up fall. The 2.5 on vault, however, is something many gymnasts who perform it can do well. Like, if McKayla Maroney and Simone Biles perform it as nicely as they do, their TTYs probably look like the 3.5s being attempted on floor. It would be nice to see a woman hit a quad twist on floor, but I’d actually like to see a good 3.5 hit on floor before anyone starts attempting quads.

Edit: I had completely blocked out Nastia Liukin throwing quad twists on floor back when she was a junior!

Do we know anything about the Philippines sending a team to Worlds and what Lizzy Leduc’s status is with them?

They are definitely not sending a team this year, because by the time the draw was completed, they had not registered any athletes. So it’s too late for them this year, and that’s possibly because either Leduc’s citizenship isn’t old enough yet for her to compete for that country or because she hadn’t been in the drug testing pool long enough. I’m not totally sure, though…but I’d love to see them send her as an individual next year.