It’s time for the 12th edition 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!

Hey, I have a question, especially in light of Sarah’s post about judging. To wit, why we don’t require judges to itemize their deductions? Wouldn’t it solve all controversies forever?

If anything, wouldn’t that create more controversy? Itemizing and cataloging deductions will not erase the fact that gymnastics is a subjective sport that is judged by human beings. Remember that most judging deductions are “up to .xx” and one judge might deduct more while another will deduct less and neither judge is right or wrong. That’s the point of having multiple judges on one panel: to get a variety of opinions that, when averaged together, will result in a fair score. Cataloging deductions would also be incredibly time consuming and would result in much longer competitions for athletes, coaches, and spectators with more wait time in between routines and events for gymnasts. Most gymnasts know how annoying it is to stand there forever when judges are deliberating the score of the gymnast who went before them. Itemizing deductions would make that kind of wait and lag the norm and it would be counterproductive to the flow of the meet. It could be cool from a fan’s perspective to see why judges are deducting, but at the end of the day whether we know exactly what they’re doing or not, people would still debate and argue whether the judge made the right call.

What exactly happened to Rebecca Tunney? What did she injure?

She injured her elbow in May and had surgery following the injury.

I know Kyla wants to go to Stanford–do you know when we should hear about whether she will be? I feel like the athletes are always announced before the usual acceptance period.

Stanford is a little different, because you actually need to be accepted to the school academically first whereas other schools sometimes will let athletes in even if they don’t quite meet the academic standards. Kyla is still finishing up high school, so we won’t know if she’ll even go there until after she’s been accepted. Since she’s now in her senior year, it’ll likely be soon, especially if she applied early decision!

This is a little random, but I always wonder about this when the selection camps happen – what do the athletes plan for? Do they pack as though they’ll make the team and be heading to the competition straight from camp? Do they book a return flight home, or wait until the selection announcement and book a last-minute flight home if they’re not chosen?

It depends on the purpose of the camp. If they’re just checking in to see how everyone’s doing, they’re just prepared for camp, but if it’s something like Jesolo or Worlds or another competition where they leave straight from the ranch to their destination, pretty much anyone there – whether they’re on the national team or not – is told to be prepared to travel. They always go straight from the ranch to the competition, and I believe flights are taken care of by the WAG program administrative staff so they’re not stuck like “how do I get home!?” with no notice if they’re shocked about not being selected for a competition. They are sponsored by an airline, United, so they must have something worked out where spots on planes are held for certain flights and then canceled without penalty or something along those lines…usually when an entire team or program gives their business to one specific airline or hotel, they’re super accommodating and understand that there is a lot of last minute booking. At the same time, Martha Karolyi usually has some general idea of who she is bringing to each competition beforehand, so it’s probably not all last minute.

If Nastia followed her mom’s path and became a rhythmic gymnast instead, do you think RG would have a bigger presence in the US than it does now? Also, how different would your life be?

Probably not. Nastia is big because she was an artistic gymnast, and artistic gymnastics is popular in the U.S. with the most coverage at the Olympic Games. If she competed rhythmic, no one would really know who she is because it’s not really a sport that gets much – if any – airtime in the U.S., which tends to focus on artistic gymnastics, swimming, track, and soccer. If she won a rhythmic title at the Olympics they’d probably donate about 5 minutes to her performances, and that’s only IF she won gold. They definitely wouldn’t follow the competition the way they do with artistic gym, so no one would really know who she was.

So what do you think Brenna will do now? Fight for Worlds next year? Or give it up for Oklahoma?

Brenna will definitely be attending Oklahoma beginning in the spring. She is still at GAGE, from what I understand, but went to Oklahoma earlier this month for the team photo and to train a bit. I believe she’s doing what Mackenzie Caquatto did in the 2010-2011 season, which was her freshman season. Caquatto missed the first semester at Florida to compete at Worlds, showed up in January to start her semester and competing as a Gator, and then immediately left following the end of the semester to train at home in preparation for the 2011 World Championships. It didn’t work out for Caquatto because she got injured during the selection camp, but had she not been injured she likely would have made the team. I can see Brenna doing the same, and coming back next summer to give it one more shot.

Why is Roxi Popa always underscored? Sure, she makes mistakes here and there (who doesn’t?), but she always seems to be hit extra-hard compared to most of her competitors. A lot of people feel the same; at Euros this year at least twice the judges were even booed by the crowd when her scores came up. It’s a shame because her bars and floor in particular are singularly excellent to watch, yet I can’t figure out for the life of me why she isn’t scored better. Am I – and half the world’s gym fans – missing something?

I’m not sure…I’m not a judge so I can’t say for sure what they’re taking away from her when she competes, but I love her routines (especially floor). I found that she was mostly scored fairly at Worlds, though what I did think was unfair was how her tied score on floor didn’t allow her to advance into the finals. It’s like the FIG was bummed that they could no longer have tie breaker drama in the medals so they created tie breaker drama for getting into the final itself. Like all of the medal ties in 2012, it just seemed too coincidental to have two qualification tie breakers this year. I think her bars are exciting, though I can see why they’d be nit picky there, but her floor, I’m not sure. I think it’s an excellent routine.

What’s the main difference between doing skills on high beam vs low beam other than height difference?

There is no real difference except for the psychological factor of it being “less scary.” Usually gymnasts start training skills on a low beam, and as their confidence and consistency increases, they move up to higher and higher beams.

I could be wrong but why does Nastia say the front aerial to a scale is named after her when during the Olympics Bridget Sloan and Gabriela Dagroi and I believe a couple of others also competed it?

Nastia was the only one to put in the paperwork to get the skill named after her. Other gymnasts in 2008 who also performed the skill were Ksenia Afanasyeva and Steliana Nistor.

Do you there’s a chance someone like Mihai would ever go back to Romania to be head coach of their national team? 

Sticking with Mihai as the example, probably not, since he’s well-established with a successful gym here in the states, but I wouldn’t totally rule out the possibility for someone else who maybe is less grounded here than Mihai is.