It’s time for the 28th 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!

Tell us more about Sabrina Vega. I know that she continued to train after not making it to the Olympics. What has she been doing in the past 2 years? Did she go pro? Does she want to compete in college? Why hasn’t she competed since Trials?

Sabrina didn’t go pro but she also doesn’t want to compete in college. I believe she said it’s “just not for me,” so she’s just been training and doing her own thing, trying to get over injuries and stay healthy for a full elite competition season. I think that pretty much sums up her reason for not competing since Trials…she had so many minor injuries building up after competing for so long, her body basically needed a break, taking her out of the picture for 2013, and then after that, she had to focus on getting back to high levels of difficulty, taking her out for 2014. It seems like a good plan, and after returning to the national team camp in the fall, it now she looks like she’s on the right track for a great elite comeback!

Why do judges give MyKayla Skinner full credit for her Moors? It seems like a pretty big stretch to call that a laid out position with her hips so piked and her legs so bent.

A bend in the hips that is at a 90-135 degree angle is considered a pike. If the angle in the hips is more than 135 degrees, it’s considered a layout. Similarly, the knees can be bent without being considered a true tuck if the angle of knee bend is open enough, therefore she would be credited for the stretched position but would be deducted in execution without the skill being completely devalued to a tucked double double.

Have you heard anything about McKayla Maroney? What’s her training been like? I’m so surprised she hasn’t made a camp appearance yet.

Based on a couple of her tweets in the past month, it seems like she’s been dealing with illness unrelated to gymnastics. Of course, injuries were a pretty big problem for her as well, so that combination of being hurt and sick at the same time has apparently kept her out of the gym for a significant period of time. I hope we see her at some point in 2015, but at this point I don’t know if it’s likely to expect her to be at full capacity by this summer. Either way, she knows her body better than any of us, and if she needs the time off, she should take it! Pushing it won’t solve anything.

Why do gymnasts touch the beam in some way during a beam routine? Is there a requirement that they must be close to be beam at some point of the routine?

There is a requirement for “low to beam” choreography during which a part of the torso has to touch the beam. A tenth is docked for routines that don’t feature choreography close to the apparatus, which has been applied in order to discourage girls from merely sitting down, straddling the beam, and standing back up again. Think of Alicia Sacramone’s choreography (the chest-stand) and Eythora Thorsdottir of the Netherlands also has some pretty exquisite work there.

What do you think of Skinner’s new vault that she showed us on Instagram? Do you see her competing that?

I’m guessing this refers to the Cheng with the extra half twist, aka a Yurchenko half-on, double full off? It’s super ambitious, but it would be amazing to see in competition. I think she could possibly do it, though with it both being super difficult and having a blind landing, I don’t know if it’ll happen (blind landings seem to be tough for Skinner, based on how she lands her Amanar). I’d love to see it, and imagine if she hits it well enough in the gym, we might at least see it in podium training at a meet or two, even if she ends up not going for it in a competition.

This might be a stupid question, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Whenever I watch NCAA training videos of the girls on bars, I always see them being spotted fairly significantly on their bails. I’ve noticed this not just with freshmen or former level 10s but with former elites who are fairly far into their college careers (Bridget Sloan comes to mind but she’s certainly not the only one). It seems odd to me that gymnasts of that caliber would still be needing a spot on relatively simple skills. What are your thoughts on this or do you have an explanation for it?

I don’t think it’s that they need assistance doing the skill, I think it’s just so that they are able to “mark” the handstand position, and having a coach to catch them in the right shape helps. If they do not finish in a handstand, the skill is devalued from a bail (a D element) to an overshoot (a C element). This ends up being a very timely question with what happened to Elizabeth Price in competition last night at Stanford…she missed her bail and ended up injuring her shoulder, so even though the skill looks relatively easy and is one of the most popular skills in competition, it’s still a difficult element with the same exact difficulty value as dangerous release moves like Tkatchevs, which always use a spot. It might look like second nature, but it’s still a pretty difficult skill and comes with risks, as we saw last night, so a spot is necessary to help limit these mistakes.

How is Deanna Soza doing? Has she recovered from her eye illness? Is she planning on competing again in gymnastics?

Deanne Soza has fully recovered and is back at camp! She recently posted a video on Instagram of one of the most perfect double arabians ever, and she seems to be doing a million times better.

I’m a big fan of Mackenzie Caquatto. I noticed that for her senior year in NCAA, she removed her beautiful pak salto and kept her shaposh as her only release move. Why do you think she did that? Was it just not necessary, point-wise, in NCAA?

Yeah, typically when an overly ambitious skill is removed from an NCAA routine, it’s because it wasn’t necessary (although a nice bonus). I believe she also started her senior year doing a Tkatchev, but she took that out pretty quickly as well. Florida actually has pretty conservative bars, which is one of the reasons they’re able to score so well…I remember when Bridget Sloan came as a freshman, she wanted desperately to compete her Church and did it for about two weeks but then it was quickly downgraded because the difficulty really wasn’t worth it at that level. A lot of their routines in 2014 were pretty straightforward…like, Maloney, bail, sole circle, dismount. Easy to get through with minimal deductions, making for beautiful (albeit somewhat boring) routines that bring in huge scores.

Why didn’t Kyla Ross sign an NLI? I thought she was a senior in high school and planned on doing college gymnastics.

Unlike most schools, gymnasts who want to go to Stanford have to see if they get in academically (the notification date for those who applied regular decision is April 1), and then has to address the issue of whether or not she will attend for the 2015-2016 season or defer until after the Olympic Games.

Do you think it’s ok to completely skip the J.O. levels and just train elite?

That would be highly unlikely and improbable. Gymnastics is all about basics and fundamentals, and skipping those basics and fundamentals would be dangerous and detrimental to the gymnast. Nobody can just walk into a gym and say they want to start training elite. That’s just not how it works. It takes years of training. In addition to the training that goes in the gym, there’s also the competitive aspect. Competing through the J.O. program gives the athlete competitive experience; not getting that experience would not bode well for someone who wants to compete at the elite level, hands-down a much more stressful and nerve-wracking endeavor. The only thing close that comes to mind is Laney Madsen, who basically skipped all the way to level 10, though even she trained her entire life as a cheerleader and then spent two years working on developing artistic gymnastics skills from what she already knew. Even now trying her hand at elite, she has to qualify like anyone else, which means going to level 10 meets and elite qualifiers until she can earn her elite scores.

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Article by Sarah Chrane and Lauren Hopkins