It’s time for the 27th 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!
When I read gymnastics blogs, I feel like there’s such an animosity towards Nastia Liukin and Gabby Douglas. Why do people hate them so much?
I don’t think people hate them, but I do think people are angry and perhaps a bit jealous that they won the coveted all-around Olympic gold over other own favorites. I know Nastia typically gets the jealous hate from fervent Shawn Johnson fans, and then Gabby is usually the target of hate from Viktoria Komova die-hards. It’s nothing more than people being bitter and petty and unable to recognize that Nastia and Gabby did nothing but show up and hit their best routines ever when it counted. That’s all they were responsible for. The scores they – and Shawn/Viktoria – received were completely out of their hands. I think any animosity toward any gymnast is typically misdirected and frankly, quite silly.
What happened to Casey Jo Magee? Â Last I remember she was training and coaching somewhere but we haven’t heard from her since 2012. Â I loved her beam!
While competing at the elite level in 2011 and 2012, Casey was the assistant coach at Western Michigan for two years before accepting the assistant coach position at Missouri, where she also serves as beam coach. She also got married last summer and is now Casey Jo MacPherson…her husband was a top finisher at the Boston Marathon in 2014, placing 19th!
It is disappointing to not to be able to see U.S. gymnasts in more international competitions throughout the year. Do you know the exact reasoning of USAG/Marta Karolyi in this decision?
They really don’t miss out on that many. In fact, the U.S. girls overall have more international experience than the Chinese and even the Russians, a majority of whom only compete at domestic meets aside from Euros and Worlds. Every country has one or two top athletes they send everywhere (which I believe Karolyi doesn’t want to do because why exhaust Simone Biles or Kyla Ross at random all-around meets risking their health for Worlds?), but for the most part most of the larger nations only send teams or individuals to the bigger meets. The U.S. sends teams usually to Jesolo every year, and then to Pac Rims and Pan Ams when they’re held. That’s in addition to multiple domestic meets and then of course Worlds. I think they’re reluctant to send athletes to meets that conflict with camps or domestic competitions, but to me, that makes sense. Why send someone like Nia Dennis to the Youth Olympic Games (held the same week as U.S. Championships) where the top girls were earning scores around 54-55 when she can compete in the U.S. where around 18 juniors were capable of those scores? Clearly she’d gain more competitive experience at nationals than she would have at YOGs, evident in the fact that she narrowly lost out on a title in the U.S. after multiple falls. With the same performance at YOGs, she would have won the all-around by quite a bit! So there are typically reasons like these for not sending girls, and I think when individual opportunities do come up – like the World Cup meets – she generally offers spots to gymnasts but gymnasts don’t always accept them. One gymnast was offered the opportunity to compete at the World Cups last year, but after missing so much school due to camps and World Championships, had to turn them down. Overall, I think the U.S. girls are pretty well-rounded in their international experience, which clearly shows, as they have hands down been the most consistent, level-headed competitors over the past four years.
I don’t even know if this is possible, but what would happen if someone tied in an event final? How would they split the tie?
In the past, event final ties were broken based on the execution score. If two gymnasts had scores of 15.0 but one had a 6.0 difficulty and a 9.0 execution while the other had a 6.4 difficulty and an 8.6 execution, the girl with the 9.0 would win gold while the girl with the 8.6 would win silver. Now, the FIG no longer does this in event finals where medals are concerned, though ties are still broken on other levels. In 2014, both beam and floor qualifications saw ties in the 8th place spots, and because Emma Nedov on beam and Roxana Popa on floor had lower execution than their competitors who also earned 8th, they lost out on event final spots.
Why do you think the U.S. chose not to send a competitor to Stuttgart this year since they did the past two years? I would of loved to have seen Skinner or a healthy Nichols compete even if just for experience.
The U.S. actually did select a gymnast to compete. However, due to the demands already this year – multiple national team/selection camps plus a long and grueling schedule at World Championships – she turned down the spot in order to focus on school. Traveling to and competing in the Stuttgart and Glasgow World Cups is an ordeal over two weeks long in the weeks leading up to the holidays and final exams, and because the travel itself requires such an adjustment from you physically and mentally, it’s really hard to do after just training for Worlds the month before. In the past, Elizabeth Price made the decision to go likely because she didn’t also compete at Worlds. This year, there weren’t really any healthy seniors available aside from the Worlds competitors, so when the spot was turned down, there wasn’t anyone else to go in her place.
I’m so excited that Aly Raisman decided to return, I can’t wait to see her compete again! But why does she keeps training bars? Her vault is pretty solid, and of course beam and floor are her “wow” events. She fills a hole there for the U.S…however, bars have always been rather difficult for her and I’m curious why she would spend her time training them when she could have her focus centered on being a three-event gymnast.
I know Aly has said many times that she wanted to be known as someone who could be reliable on all four events, and frankly, she was. Were her bars gorgeous? Nah, but they got the job done in the Olympic qualifications and she finished 23rd out of 79 gymnasts in qualifications. For a ‘bad’ event, that’s not too shabby. Basically, she figured out how to make the event work for her, and considering it was her worst event, her difficulty was actually pretty respectable. Basically, she could go up on the event in a pinch, and even if it wasn’t the cleanest or most appealing routine of the day, she got through it pretty much every single time. That’s better than not having the event at all! I think while Martha Karolyi accepts specialists, she’d rather see girls on all events because at the Olympics with just five on a team and three having to go up, bringing a girl who can’t bust out a solid last-minute routine in case of emergency is really risky.
How do you think Emily Gaskins’ gym change will affect her Rio chances?
It’s hard to say right now, as we haven’t seen her compete with this gym before. Frankly, it was hard to judge her Rio chances before she switched gyms, because she really wasn’t one of the top girls on any event. If she was unhappy at CGA, the gym change could be a positive thing in terms of her future chances because in order to perform well, you have to be in a good state of mind…but if the level of coaching ends up being vastly different, attitude won’t really matter. We’ll just have to wait and see with this one!
Can you please explain the meaning behind signing the National Letter of Intent? Because Simone signed, does this mean that she can’t go pro if she wanted to after Rio?
Signing the NLI is essentially like signing a contract binding you to your future NCAA program, but gymnasts can still change their minds, whether they decide to go to another school by requesting a 4-4 transfer, or by asking for a release. Doing this isn’t against any laws, though it is frowned upon and is considered ethically irresponsible, though I think gymnasts with the opportunity to go pro because they could make a significant living fall under a gray area, as this happens so rarely; a gymnast winning gold at the Olympics and then breaking her NLI to reap the benefits is vastly different from a football player breaking his NLI, as the opportunity for him to earn money through his sport as a career is still widely available to him after college whereas for a gymnast, it’s almost impossible. Of course, by signing the NLI, Biles has pretty much said she really wants to go to UCLA no matter what happens in her elite life; another option for her would have been to put off the signing completely, as Aly Raisman did when she verbally committed to Florida. Instead of signing the NLI with her signing class, Raisman left her options open by remaining a verbal commit, showing that she was still on the fence.
What is Sarah Finnegan up to these days? I loved her!
After a long time dealing with her elbow injury and related issues, Sarah left GAGE and moved home to the St Louis area, where she currently trains as a level 10. In November, she signed her national letter of intent to compete at Louisiana State, as part of the 2015-2016 signing class!
I’ve seen Simone Biles’ Â snapchat story and every week there always seems to be a snap of her waking up at 6 for drug testing. Why does she do that every week? Is it something that the gym does or something she personally does?
Drug testing happens for anyone on the national team (in pretty much all sports, not just gymnastics) and is done by the USADA, aka the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. It’s basically a way to regulate illegal substances that enhance performance, and it’s supposed to happen completely at random. However, I remember Simone’s coach Aimee Boorman was a little ticked off on Facebook because ‘at random’ for Simone ended up being once a week, pretty much! I don’t know much about how the USADA operates, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they started getting suspicious of a girl winning Worlds two years in a row…how many of us don’t believe Simone is human?!
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The Gymternet 
Thank you for answering my question! I love this site; keep it up!
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I’m glad we got to it! Sorry if it took awhile!
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Thanks so much for answering my question. I love your site; keep it up!
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Regarding the animosity towards Gabby, I can’t speak for everyone but for me, I can’t stand her because of her attitude and the way she treated Chow. Going into the 2012 Olympics, Gabby was actually my favorite gymnast and I loved her gymnastics (and still do). But in interviews after winning the AA, she sounded rather full of herself and that has continued in interviews and quotes from her up until now. As far as the Chow situation, it has come out from several sources that she still owes him money after leaving his gym (just like she did with Excalibur). That’s a really crappy way to treat the man who got her to the Olympics, IMO. With all that said, she is an amazing gymnast and I hope to see video of her comeback soon!
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I think that anyone who spews hatred toward someone they do not know at all is ridiculous. All of the things you are talking about here, regarding her owing money and what not, are hearsay. No one knows what happened between Gabby and Chow. Yes, Chow coached Gabby to the Olympics, but let’s not forget to give her some credit too, since, you know, it was her body and her gymnastics that got to the Olympics too. I don’t see her attitude in interviews at all. I see confidence and I also see a lot of humility, even still. I think sometimes people see what they want to see. Reminds me of all the BS about Aliya being a diva. It is often just xenophobic and sexist, quite frankly, IMO. Women who assert themselves are often viewed as “full of themselves” or “aggressive” or “catty.” There always has to be some drama created surrounding a strong woman. Ugh.
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“She sounded rather full of herself”–this reminds me of when I was in the 7th grade, riding along the back of my dad’s bike with my arms crossed, and my best friend solemnly told me, with the air of someone who doesn’t want to deliver bad news but for whom it’s a duty, that I looked “conceited” with my arms like that. Why on earth are adolescent girls so quick to imagine “conceit” in other girls and to take them down a peg? Gabby SHOULD sound proud, she achieved an amazing thing! She was and is an incredible athlete, as well as a role model. She doesn’t have to apologize for that, or prostrate herself to sound sufficiently humble all so teenage girls don’t feel too threatened by her. As for Chow’s NO ONE knows what happened there since neither of them have talked. I would not be remotely surprised if Excaliber is stoking those stories, if not outright making them up, since they notoriously blabbed about the finances of Gabby’s family (absolutely appalling behavior, I would *never* let my child train at a gym that violates my privacy that way). But nobody knows and it’s really none of our concern, it’s between the two of them.
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I agree with the above poster about the Gabby hate. As for Nastia, a lot of the distain is due to her gymnastics being grossly overhyped. She had form issues galore and only really excelled on one apparatus. That plus her “comeback” and free pass to trials is very off putting.
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Well said! The special treatment and ridiculous hype Nastia received was enough to make me dislike her as well.
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So by your reasoning you can’t stand her just because other people liked her? Wow. Or is it really because the judges liked her more than your personal favorite gymnast? Which I’m pretty sure we all know is the real reason. I almost laughed out loud at the “form issues all over the place” comment. Yep that’s how I will remember Nastia. The gymnast with horrible form 🙂
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Beth: “Or is it really because the judges liked her more than your personal favorite gymnast?”
I feel like 95% of all “hate” (ugh) for any particular gymnast can be chalked up to this reason. The rest is down to acting foolishly (Shayla Worley, Carlotta Ferlito).
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Nastia is definitely not my favorite gymnast (I prefer the Simone Biles type – and cried when Shawn didn’t win AA lolol) but I do think people are way hard on her.
Like most gymnasts, Nastia DID have some form issues, which I some people forget completely and others blow out of proportion. Just a few examples-legs crossed in her twists, cowboyed double flips (which I think technically IS allowed, though it is certainly not pretty). Her double front w/half bars dismount had flexed feet (and the cowboy position) and her tkatchev had some flexed feet. Lots of people complain about her giants, but Viktoria Komova (and many of the Russians) use the same technique of straddle above the high bar, whip legs through (typically by bending them) and I’m pretty sure this is technically allowed as well (correct me if I’m wrong). The ugliness of the technique is just more evident with Nastia, I think, because she’s a bit taller.
There were also things she did very well, like her pak salto, gienger, pirouettes and inbar stalders on bars, double lay bars dismount, onodi and aerial-bhs lay flight series on beam (and the bhs lay lay when she actually hit it), leaps and jumps on floor and beam, and despite the crossed legs, some of her twisting was actually pretty impressive (front handspring front lay front 2.5 twist at 2005 worlds is pretty cool, for example), among other things. She had pretty nice lines overall (granted, this was natural due to body type), and this might be personal opinion, but I enjoyed her floor choreography, particularly in 2005.
I wouldn’t say she only excelled on one event. Her beam was actually pretty excellent. Her difficulty wasn’t quite as high as Shawn’s but it was still pretty darn high. Again, some dismount issues with the leg crossing (and back when she was doing the triple twist, some DEFINITE issues with rotation) and her side flip, as I feel ALL side flips are, was fugly, but overall her beam really was good. Watch her Olympic AA routine, olympic event finals, worlds finals 2007, or pac rims 2008. She had quite a bit of difficulty and really did execute it well. She was certainly inconsistent, especially in 2006-2007 after her ankle problems, and her connections were pretty slow, but overall her work was still very nice when she hit. Her floor was also pretty good, especially for someone who couldn’t whip out double doubles. Crossed legs in twisting, an ugly (but allowed and serviceable) double front, but she has world/Olympic medals there. She was a much better floor worker before her ankle injury but even in 2008 her floor was nothing to sneer at. She was most definitely NOT excellent at vault, though I must say her 2008 Olympic AA vault was PERFORMED excellently for the low-difficulty vault it was. I don’t think it’s fair to say she was only great at bars when she has multiple world and olympic medals (some of them gold) on 2 other events.
Her comeback and trials acceptance is a different story lol I completely understand how people were pissed off there. I was. When I think about it now though, the trials acceptance was more Marta’s fault than hers and really, you can’t exactly BLAME someone from attempting a comeback, no matter how badly timed it could be. I did feel her announcement of it (right after the girls won worlds) and the way she (or her management/agent?) handled her comeback in general was less than classy, though.
Overall, I don’t think Nastia was “grossly overrated”… there are plenty of reasons to like Nastia (and plenty to dislike her), and while there are surely rabid fans out there who grossly overrate her -again, not uncommon for any elite gymnast and not exactly Nastia’s fault- I think most people, regardless of personal preference, are capable of appreciating what she did well and disliking what she didn’t.
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Love your well-thought-out answers!
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Thank you Hailey!
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I agree with you about the Americans not really doing any fewer competitions than gymnasts from the rest of the Big Four (except Romania). I never really got why the US was singled out for it. I guess Russia does send lower-ranked gymnasts to small meets, but as far as the top competitors, they’re really all about even.
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Yeah, and also with the U.S. girls mainly trying to retain their NCAA eligibility, they tend not to go to the meets where a cash prize is offered (aside from the World Cup all-around meets), which is nice because then at the World Challenge Cups for event final competitions, girls who could really use that money to help fund their careers end up winning, which makes a big difference for them since their programs often lack the funding or support to send them to big competitions like Worlds.
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I feel like some of these questions have been answered before. I think it would be cool if the U.S. can send some athletes who won’t usually have the chance to represent the U.S. internationally to international meets.
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We try to only post original new questions but we’ve answered about 300 questions now over the past six months, so it’s not always possible to remember which have been answered. Also, some may have different answers now than they’ve had in the past (i.e. “What’s going on with [insert gymnast here]”). When something big happens (i.e. Emily Gaskins leaving her gym, McKayla Maroney being out of competition) we tend to get 10-15 questions about these things all at once and I just choose one from the group to respond to. And often, a question might be similar to one we’ve answered in the past but not the same exact question, so parts of the answer might be similar but not the whole thing (like, last week we answered something about the World Cups and this week there was another World Cup question and part of our answer was similar but not the answer as a whole).
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