It’s time for the 26th 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!

I really liked the Rite of Spring floor ex routine. I was wondering if roll out skills are illegal for the women now? I’d love to see more variety in women’s tumbling. Roll outs, punch fronts, etc.

Yes, roll-out skills are banned for women, and there is almost always a debate about whether men should be allowed to compete them, as they have been responsible for many devastating injuries. I believe they have since been devalued for MAG athletes (or are going to be devalued in the next code) after Ananth Rao was paralyzed after misjudging a landing in 2010; a year later, Japan’s Yusuke Tanaka made a similar miscalculation at World Championships and sustained a concussion. There are many skills that cause injuries far more frequently than roll-out skills, but these are Achilles and knee and elbow and shoulder injuries. Injuries sustained from roll-out skills pretty much exclusively involve the head, putting gymnasts at risk for concussion or paralysis with even one tiny error in judgment. It would be nice to see them for some variety, but I don’t think they’ll come back for women anytime soon.

Any word on Katherine Grable’s possible return to elite?  Also, do you think the current trend of elites choosing NCAA over going pro will continue? (The recent postings of many of the current world champions enjoying themselves on recruiting trips are great!)

If it’s happening, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be this year. She hasn’t posted any videos or training updates, and I haven’t seen anything that makes it look like she’s spending significant time in the gym. I hope in the future she attempts elite because I think she’s amazing! I think in years not directly leading to Olympic years, the trend always tends to see elites choosing NCAA…but then as the Olympics get closer, girls who look like locks for the team either change their minds if they’ve already chosen a college or just go straight to pro if they haven’t been recruited. I think what happened with Rebecca Bross in the last quad (and Jana Bieger right before her) made people realize the importance of actually getting to a place where going pro is worth it as opposed to jumping at it the second you have elite success. I do think there are a few gymnasts who made the decision to do NCAA gymnastics this quad who might change their mind directly before or after the Games, but I do like that the girls are at least considering their options more carefully.

Why do you think Nastia Liukin seemed so behind in her training and preparation at Olympic Trials in 2012? I’m not sure exactly when she began training for that comeback, but it seemed quite late, and given her incredibly vast experience, I would think she’d know how much time she needed to get in the kind of shape she’d need for Trials. I can’t quite believe that the comeback was a publicity stunt, as some have said, but at the same time, for a gymnast/coach pair known for their meticulous planning and control, I’m surprised it wasn’t more well thought-out.

There were multiple factors…to begin with, she had a nagging shoulder injury, and then as you said, she started a bit too late. I don’t think it was a publicity stunt at all, but I do think she assumed things would come back more naturally for her than they actually did. I think her beam was actually at a fantastic level, and on bars, she had the skills but lacked endurance. I believe she started training bars pretty late in the game because of her shoulder issues, but either way she was able to get the actual skills back pretty quickly, and she looked great while doing them. Her issue was actually piecing everything together, which is why she could get through all of her big skills and then sit the dismount. Her dismount actually looked phenomenal in training, but at the end of a long, difficult routine, she just didn’t have the energy for it. It really is too bad, and I think had she been focusing on conditioning for the months leading up to actually training the skills, things would have been better. I’m not sure why they didn’t factor conditioning into her training plan, but you have to also remember she was doing a lot of other things outside of gymnastics whereas leading up to 2008, gymnastics was her sole focus.

What is the highest execution score you have seen on each event in this quad (or really, any quad with the new scoring system)? I have seen some 9.0+’s on vault this quad, and maybe some high 8.8s on other apparatus, but I was wondering if anyone has gotten a 9.5-ish execution score under the new scoring system. It’s certainly possible to do high-difficulty tumbling/connections with perfect execution (here I’m thinking about gymnasts like Shannon Miller in ’92-’96), so are gymnasts really just focusing on upping that D-score while somewhat neglecting the E-score?

Off the top of my head, I’d have to go with McKayla Maroney’s vault in the team final at the 2012 Olympic Games, Nastia Liukin’s beam routine at the 2008 Pac Rim Championships, and then Simone Biles probably has the highest floor execution I’ve seen in multiple routines of hers. I’m glad we don’t see ‘perfect’ execution scores because I really don’t believe anyone is absolutely a hundred percent perfect in any routine they do (vault possibly being an exception because it’s one skill as opposed to a bunch), and whenever I see execution around a 9.5 I immediately become leery knowing how strict the deductions in this code are, but I do think it’s possible to perform really high difficulty almost perfectly, and there are definitely gymnasts who come close to perfection.

How do you think competition today would stack up if compulsories were still required?

It’s hard to say. You can’t really judge based on execution alone, because compulsories are far less difficult than optional routines, and a girl who doesn’t have great execution in her optional routine might be solid at the compulsory level. Like, Alyssa Pritchett did the U.S. elite compulsory competition this year and blew everyone out of the water on vault with a 9.7, but then only got an 8.6 execution on her 5.2 SV vault in optionals, whereas someone like Mykayla Skinner could come in with a moderate compulsory score but then absolutely destroy her in optionals. Basically, it balances out, so I don’t think the inclusion of a compulsory routine would change much, unless they were heavily weighted (i.e. compulsories are worth 70% and optionals are worth 30%) which wouldn’t be very likely.

Is Jordyn Wieber ever coming back to elite? Because I’ve seen some videos of her training her Weiler full but she doesn’t seem as serious now that she’s at UCLA.

No, unfortunately it’s not going to happen. She was thinking about it back in the spring of 2013 but after making the decision to attend school and be a ‘normal’ teenager, I think realized her heart just wasn’t in it. Besides, she reached one of the ultimate goals of gymnastics – an Olympic gold medal – and even if she didn’t necessarily have the outcomes she probably wanted in individual events, she knows she contributed a great deal to the team and a gold medal is a gold medal. She doesn’t seem to have regrets, and why should she? She performed well and had no way to change the silly two-per-country rule to work in her favor.

Who do you think will stick to elite for this year and who will leave go off to college?

Based on last year’s results, I think Mykayla Skinner, Madison Kocian, and Simone Biles are the three biggest signees for the 2015-2016 season who are going to defer in order to stay with elite until the Olympic Games. I can also see Peyton Ernst giving elite another whirl, though wouldn’t be surprised if she decided to go straight to Florida. Macy Toronjo is definitely off to UCLA. I think that’s it for girls with 2015 graduations!

Just wondering if you know how Brenna Dowell could practice with the Oklahoma team this fall when she wasn’t yet a student?

Brenna was taking online classes at Oklahoma while training for World Championships, and she was set to begin physically attending the university at the beginning of 2015. I don’t think she spent a lot of time on the campus until the end of the fall, but would go for things like photo day and then the occasional training session until she eventually moved there full time.

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