It’s time for the 16th 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 the contact form at the bottom of the page!

What are the criteria for the Longines Elegance award?

The Longines Prize for Elegance is voted on by journalists who take many factors into account…technique, emotional appeal in their performances, beauty, charm, charisma, grace, and harmony of movement. Journalists also look at the gymnast historically…for example, if a gymnast didn’t make the Olympics one year but came back the next and performed wonderfully at Worlds, she is heavily considered, or if a gymnast shows beautiful sportsmanship or has a historic performance for his or her country…all of this is what journalists are told to look for when they judge.

How do you feel about the gymnasts actually used in team finals versus who you predicted? Were your scores accurate?

I think for the most part I was pretty spot on…for the U.S. I was exactly right, down to the order in which they competed, which is funny. Martha OBVIOUSLY reads The Gymternet! :-p And the score they got in real life was 179.280 whereas I predicted 179.525 so I’d say I feel pretty happy about knowing this U.S. team inside and out, but that’s what happens when you analyze a team for an entire year. I had less familiarity with the other teams because I don’t physically attend any of their meets.

With China, I was spot on with vault and bars, and I was right in choosing Shang and Yao for beam and Shang and Chen for floor. I had Bai going on beam with Huang as my alternate, but in real life China used Huang for reasons I’m still baffled by. To me, Bai was the obvious choice for beam along with Shang and Yao, which she proved by winning a beam medal. Maybe they were afraid her inexperience would be an issue? And on floor, they went with Tan over my choice of Yao. A good choice, because Tan ended up doing pretty well, whereas Yao ended up having issues on floor all week. My guess is that they originally planned on using Yao, but switched to Tan after seeing how Yao had been performing. I predicted they’d get a 173.011 and in reality they got a 172.587.

My team final lineup predictions were correct for vault, bars, and floor for team Russia, and on beam I had Kharenkova and Mustafina correct. I The only one I missed there was putting Spiridonova in place of Kramarenko on beam. I had Kramarenko as my alternate. She ended up falling in the team final, but Spiridonova fell in qualifications so it was a tough choice, I’d say, though Spiridonova has historically performed better than Kramarenko on that event. I had them earning a 172.493 and they actually got a 171.462.

In terms of Romania, I was correct about vault, beam, and floor but had Ocolisan competing bars over Tudorache. I think Ocolisan is the better bar worker but she had an absolute nightmare bars performance in qualifications so I definitely see why they switched her out. I predicted they’d get a 169.246 and they got a 170.963, exceeding my prediction by almost two points thanks to Iordache hitting close to her top scores on each event (my prediction was done using averages).

Overall, for the top four teams my predictions were super accurate (only four incorrect lineup guesses out of 48 total lineup spots among the four teams as a whole!), and I’m happy that they were pretty spot-on because I like math and I love when data is your friend.

Why is there always a big deal made about how the gymnasts are so physically tired by the end of a competition after doing qualifications, team finals, the all-around, etc? Don’t they train for many hours a day, almost every day, doing conditioning and multiple sets of routines? How much harder is it to perform, at most, four routines in a day (plus warmups) compared to what they’re used to?

A lot of it is psychological exhaustion. The pressure and nerves at huge competitions can really get to you, your adrenaline is on a rollercoaster ride, and you’re also working in different conditions in which you’d normally train. It’s more tiring than one might think, and you have to keep in mind that almost every gymnast is getting used to a different country, changes in the food they’re eating, sleeping in hotels…and all while adjusting to a vastly different time zone. That all adds to the stress of competition which is why one competition – in which only four minutes are spent actually competing – can feel more exhausting than eight hours in the gym.

Why were medals given out to alternates in the team final? Has this occurred before? Does this mean Madison Desch has a gold medal?

I’m not sure of the reasoning behind this, though I can imagine it has something to do with sportsmanship and making the alternate a part of the team, because even though you don’t really see it, an alternate plays a HUGE role. She has to be physically and mentally prepared to compete, she has to train at the same level as the others despite fully knowing that in all likelihood she’ll never actually get to show her routines, and she is usually one of the biggest cheerleaders for her team even though she won’t get any of the glory. I’m glad the alternates were recognized, and think they deserve to be noticed, as they are often unsung heroes. Pretty much every member of Team USA repeatedly said how much Desch played a role in their success, so if teenage girls realize it, I’m glad the FIG is finally beginning to.

Did Roxana Popa ever consider competing for Romania?

She moved to Spain at such a young age (six), it’s likely her family wasn’t thinking about her chances as an Olympian. She had her Spanish nationality I believe by age ten or so, and by the time she was internationally eligible, I don’t think her family considered moving back to Romania just so she’d be part of a better team. I’ll talk to them about it and see what the process was like, but my guess is that she was happy in Spain and didn’t feel she needed to uproot her life for gymnastics.

I worry Kyla Ross doesn’t have a pace on the team in 2016, and possibly even in 2015. Juniors are so strong and there are already so many seniors in the mix. I just don’t think in a year or two she will be a lock the way she is now.

In a way you’re definitely right, but I also think Kyla is smart and knows what she needs to succeed. I think all she really needs to do is make a few upgrades on bars and beam and she’ll be all set – maybe not for an all-arounder because that field truly will be insane, but no one else in the U.S. has her combination of bars and beam. Like, Madison Kocian and Ashton Locklear have great bars but aren’t terrific on beam…and then Alyssa Baumann and Rachel Gowey have lovely beams but are not good at bars. Kyla has both, and that can really work to her advantage next year if she upgrades. In the last quad, people said she wouldn’t make the Olympics because her difficulty was too low, but even though she didn’t place in the top four AA at Olympic Trials, her bars and beam combination gave her the edge over Elizabeth Price, despite Ebee being the stronger all-arounder. Kyla I think will always find that edge, and even though she’s going slow with her pacing at the moment, I think if she wants to continue at this level she’ll figure out how to stay there. The bars/beam specialist spot was one of the most competitive spots in 2012 – you had Nastia Liukin making a comeback, Rebecca Bross, Anna Li, Bridget Sloan…all INSANELY talented women who, for whatever reasons, ended up not working out or not having it together in time. I think that’s why Ross can still be competitive even when no one thinks she will be – she just always ends up making it happen.

I have a question about judging. I just watched Simone Biles’ vault from the side, and I know I’m not a trained judge but I couldn’t see her feet cross. So do the judges actually see it? Or do they know she crosses her feet because they’ve watched her vault a million times in slow motion? Do they already know before she starts that they’re going to take a tenth off?

Judges, especially vault judges, are trained to see things in a very short amount of time. Vault can be tough because if you blink, you miss it, but the general rule of thumb when judging vault is to almost take a picture of the vault in your brain and record what you see afterward. Judges also usually watch the touch warm-up so they have a vague idea of what the gymnast will be doing. Also, keep in mind that even though the video might be recorded from the side, that’s not necessarily the point of view that the judge has…and form looks vastly different in person than it does on video. Essentially, no, the judges do not take off a tenth before they watch the vault even if it’s 99.9% likely that a gymnast will have a certain error because she always does.

How come the Worlds team is a different number of girls every year?

It’s not. In the year after the Olympics, the team is made up of four girls because they’re not really there as a “team.” It’s an individual World Championships only, so a country sends a group of individuals, not necessarily a team. The next two years both have teams with six girls. The Olympics is structured differently from Worlds due to the limited number of athletes each sport is allowed to register. With twelve full teams at the Olympics, by cutting the number of team members from six to five, they were able to allow twelve more countries to participate by sending individuals. So rather than having 72 girls from twelve countries and only 26 spots left over for other nations, now it’s 60 girls from twelve countries with 38 spots for non-top twelve nations. The Olympics are about being more inclusive, which is something the FIG has to accomplish with only a limited amount of athletes, so cutting the team from six to five helped them do that though they go back to six for Worlds because it’s their event and they can do whatever they want, whereas the IOC has the final say at the Olympics.

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Article by Lauren Hopkins