It’s time for the 21st 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!

Before we get started, someone asked a few weeks ago about the breakdown of the Chinese training groups. A couple of wonderful people wrote in and here are the groups we’ve put together:

• Coach Sun Haiou: Bai Yawen, Chen Chaohui, Hong Ke, Liu Jinru, Liu Ying, Xie Yufen
• Coaches Wang Qunce and Xu Jinglei: Fan Yilin, Huang Huidan, Liu Tingting, Luo Huan, Wang Yan, Yao Jinnan, Zhou Linlin
• Coaches Xiong Jingbin and Zhang Xia: Chen Siyi, Deng Yalan, Lv Jiaqi, Shang Chunsong, Tan Jiaxin, Wu Jin

Thank you to those who helped out!

Recently, I’ve seen a few people saying that judging should return to a compulsory routine system, presumably like the lofty “golden/artistic” days of gymnastics. I’m having a lot of trouble finding info about compulsory routines outside of the ones for levels 1-6, so I’m not quite sure what this means. Did they have more specific required elements? Did they prepare multiple routines? How are the compulsory routines different from the modern composition requirements?

The compulsory routines of yore had required elements every gymnast had to perform, and on floor they all had to perform the same routine to the same music. Gymnasts had to perform both compulsory and optional routines, but the compulsory routines were a way to show that you had a grasp of certain elements that a gymnast at the elite level should have been able to perform without a problem. It was basically an easy way to say “oh, she’s the best because they’re all doing the same exact thing and her movement/execution was the best.” Now that the code has difficulty values, compulsories aren’t really necessary, even though they disappeared before the current code came into existence, but many countries still use compulsories as a way to judge talent and ability. The U.S. uses an elite compulsory as part of the requirement for qualifying to the elite program. You’re not doing full routines, but you’re showing skills on all four events that the U.S. program directors believe all elites should be able to perform well. You’ll see a lot of leaps on beam, giants on bars, basic tumbling runs like layouts and I think back tucks…nothing difficult, but the idea is that if you can’t do a roundoff back handspring layout correctly, you have no business competing elite-level difficulty.

Wait, so did Mustafina complete an acro series during Euros 2014 EF?  I just rewatched the videos, and it looks like she did the same thing as at Nanning EF – a front aerial into handspring. So is there another flight series I’m missing? I don’t think she lost 0.5 at Euros, her D-score wasn’t that low.

Her problem at Worlds is that she did a front aerial into a clear front walkover. At Euros, she also did the front aerial to front walkover in her flight series, which doesn’t count as a flight series, but they may have credited her with a front aerial to front handspring which is different from a front walkover. I don’t think it should have been credited there, but the only thing I can think of is that the judges considered it an aerial to front handspring and not a walkover, and therefore credited it as a flight series. Honestly, they made a giant mistake if that’s how they judged it because she definitely didn’t have a flight series in that routine if I remember correctly, but I think the walkover was a bit more ambiguous and possibly could have looked like a handspring to the judges because it had a bit more propulsion than your usual front walkover, who were likely expecting to see a front aerial to front aerial and then were like “oh she did a handspring instead, cool beans.” Does that make sense? It’s the only explanation I can think of.

I’m a bit late, I know, but why did Simone downgrade her bars from last year? What happened to her piked tkatchev? Her D-score on bars went down quite a bit.

She had shoulder problems earlier this year that took her out of the American Cup and Pacific Rim Championships, so it’s likely she didn’t get the time she needed on bars to keep all of her bigger skills. I think it’s pretty evident that she struggled more on bars this year as a whole, even with the lower difficulty, so I think her shoulder issues definitely put a dent in her potential there. Hopefully she’ll be able to add everything back in the next year!

Do the judges responsible for the execution score and those responsible for the difficulty score communicate with each other while they calculate the score? Because, say the difficulty panel devalues a laidout skill because the gymnast piked it down too much, then the execution panel should no longer give deductions for the hip angle, right? As in, the skill should incur different types of deductions depending on whether it is judged against a layout or a pike skill?

That’s a really good question! I’m not sure but you provided an excellent example of why communication would be necessary, so I’m sure they difficulty panel must bring up the fact that they’re downgrading a skill. Like, if it’s a handspring layout on vault and gets downgraded to a pike, the execution panel can’t logically take tenths off for saying it was piked if the difficulty panel is crediting it as a pike…any judges want to weigh in?

I’m wondering about leadership succession for the women’s national elite program. Bela has been eased out but Martha seems to be going strong, although she seems more in the background now than even a few years ago. I know Valeri Liukin has taken over the developmental program. Who is being groomed to fill her big shoes? How could you see that playing out and does the program have the power to keep growing after the Karolyis retire? What about the fact that the ranch is their home and property?

I think in earlier years, the program basically was Bela’s and there were very few people who had say in what was happening besides him. I don’t want to compare it to a dictatorship, but really, he was the decision maker because people trusted him. Over the years since Martha Karolyi took over, the program has become more of a democracy with multiple people in charge of the program, different committees making decisions for different aspects of the program, and more than one leader in power. Martha is highly respected and makes a lot of the decisions about the women’s national team especially, because coaches trust that she knows what’s best…but even then, if coaches don’t agree with something happening at the ranch, changes happen, like when Geddert would speak up about the girls not getting enough time off and Martha would concede and bring them to the movies. I think the whole reason for putting Valeri in charge of the developmental program was to kind of groom him to take over as the new Martha, and even if he isn’t as successful in her shoes, I don’t think the whole thing would fall apart because of one man, just because of the structure of the program. There are enough people now to say “this isn’t working out” so it’s not like Valeri would make literally every decision on his own and run the program into the ground. I think that’s one of the reasons why the U.S. has become so successful…Martha is the face of the program, but there are so many coaches and administrators behind the scenes who are all involved in the decision-making whereas the Russian program, for example, still has a Bela Karolyi in the picture. Valentina Rodionenko basically goes unchallenged on so many of her decisions, which end up being terrible decisions that are leading to the program’s destruction. I think at this point, that wouldn’t happen in the U.S. because there are people besides the face of the program who do a lot of the work. In terms of the ranch, I’m pretty sure the training center now – which is now an official Olympic training center – isn’t just the Karolyi’s property. When they retire, they may still live on the grounds and be active in watching the program from the periphery, but the training facility itself I believe is USA Gymnastics’.

Out of curiosity, what specifically did y’all mean in regards to some of the younger girls flying into hysterics at the YOG? I watched all of the quals, the all around, and the event finals and the most I saw was some crying and disappointment that, honestly, isn’t that much different than the Russian team at most competitions. Of course, I only watched what was on the YouTube feed and wasn’t there, so was there behind the scenes hysterics we didn’t see?

There were a lot of girls from smaller gym programs – Turkey, Iraq, and a couple of others – who really lost it a bit more than usual when something went wrong. I believe it was Tutya Yilmaz who had that really scary bars dismount fall where her coach had to catch her, and she was a total wreck after because she was so upset about not hitting her routine…and then another girl missed one of her vaults and looked completely destroyed by it. I think they’re just young and from struggling programs and wanted to make their countries look good and were disappointed that they made mistakes on such a big stage…nothing against them and I totally get it, but it was more than the just being bummed and shedding a few tears we usually see. I know Ellie Downie had a few tearful moments of disappointment but they were mostly quiet angry tears…but Yilmaz and one of the others really looked devastated and spent minutes sobbing about their falls and mistakes. Very sad to watch, but what was worse was the male commentator making fun of them for crying.

Is there any country you feel does particularly well despite limited resources? Is there a very strict trend if you looked at, say, medals at Worlds/Olympics against amount spent on gymnastics programs, or are there countries that seem to be “more efficient” than others?

I’d have to say in the wake of their recent success at the Central American and Caribbean Games, Cuba floored me with how prepared they were. I noticed the quality in their gymnastics at Pan Ams, but they really brought it this past week and it’s hard to believe they have about 10% as much international experience as the other teams in Veracruz and yet nearly came out as champions! I’m so glad they made the decision to start sending their gymnasts to Worlds and the Olympics again…it would have been truly a shame for Yesenia Ferrera to miss out on that opportunity when she’s one of the world’s top gymnasts. I know lots of European programs like Germany and Italy are much smaller programs than the U.S. or Russian programs, for example, so it’s hard to put them on the same page, but I wouldn’t necessarily call their resources “limited”…I’m trying to think of programs where funding truly isn’t much at all, which is why Cuba comes to mind so easily. I’m definitely impressed with the North Koreans…I’ve heard their training conditions are quite bleak, so to produce an Olympic/World champion like Hong Un Jong is no easy feat. And then really, any new start-up program getting their gymnasts to Worlds…like New Zealand this year finally bringing in a full team of girls. And there are a lot of South and Central American countries that I think don’t get enough credit. Someone from Argentina’s program told me this summer that they could only afford to send I believe two of the girls to Worlds, and the rest had to pay their own way, which is why they couldn’t send a full team of six. I do think the money spent on a gymnastics program correlates to medals earned because programs with more money are able to have the best equipment, the most hours in the gym, the greatest coaches in the world…it’s very difficult for a team to rise up without financial support which is why teams and athletes that do make it through to win world or continental titles – like Cuba, Hong Un Jong, Sofi Gomez, Yamilet Pena, etc – are really special.

PS thanks for the incredible blog! ‘The Happiest World Championships Ever’ was the best piece of writing on women’s gymnastics I can recall.

Wow, thank you so much!! That is a great compliment, and we truly appreciate the kind words.

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Article by Sarah Chrane and Lauren Hopkins