It’s time for the 48th edition of You Asked, The Gymternet Answered! We apologize if we haven’t gotten to your question yet, but we try to answer in the order in which they were received. Something you want to know? Ask us anonymously by going through the contact form at the bottom of the page.

Was 2015 Pan Ams the first major competition (like, not World Cup or something like that) that Martha Karolyi didn’t attend and oversee? Since Rhonda Faehn was there?

I believe so, yes…Steve Rybacki was actually there in the Martha Karolyi role this time around, with Rhonda Faehn in her SVP of the women’s program position, but yes, I can’t think of another meet (this quad, anyway) that she’s missed.

What do you think of Teja Belak and other Slovenian gymnasts?

I love the Slovenians! I absolutely adore seeing Teja and Tjasa Kysselef kick butt on vault at every World Cup. Teja went to five World Challenge Cups this season and got four vault medals! That’s incredible, especially knowing that they train their vaults in bare bones conditions. Their gym in Ljubljana wasn’t large enough for a regulation vault runway, so they had to extend their runway out the door in order to train properly and they do a fantastic job. I hope when they move to their new facilities, it helps Teja get the DTY down cold! I also really enjoy watching Sasa Golob.

How does Morgan Hurd compete with glasses without them flying off of her face?

I just asked Morgan and she said she has a strap that attaches to her glasses. This goes around the back of your head so they stay firmly on while competing, and is pretty much standard for athletes who choose glasses over contacts in many sports! Several other glasses-wearing gymnasts, like Kami Moore back when she was a junior elite, also rely on this method.

Which teams do you predict will qualify to Rio?

The U.S., Russia, and China are givens. Great Britain, Romania, Italy, and Japan should all be in that top group as well. As for the next five spots…I’m going to say Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, Canada, and Australia are probably my top bets, though I can see France and Belgium fighting for it as well…especially when Belgium gets to take their fierce little group of current juniors/first-year 2016 seniors to the test event.

Do you know what the format of the national team training camps are? I thought they were just working out and practicing routines but then I heard that Alyssa Baumann won all-around at camp. Are they more of a competition format and how do you see results from them?

The national team camps are mostly about showing skill progression and potential upgrades, with intense but relatively short (compared to home gym) workouts happening twice a day. Earlier in the year they don’t do camp competitions, but as they get into competition season they do what’s called ‘verification’ where the gymnasts will verify partial or full routines for Martha and a panel of judges.

Verification is sometimes used as a way to determine a team (i.e. the gymnasts will verify in the February camp for a spot at American Cup if there’s one open, they’ll verify in the March camp for their spots at Jesolo, etc) but it’s also just used as a way to see where the gymnasts are at mentally in a competitive zone. They don’t always push full routines at verification because they don’t want to wear them out, so sometimes they’ll only do partial routines if they’re not vying for spots on a team, and then I believe they also verify half routines at times, which is when they’ll show the first half of a routine one day and the second half the next.

You kind of have to take reports of scores at verification with a grain of salt…it’s a bit easier to compete a partial routine or a routine in two parts at the ranch than it is to compete a full routine in an arena, so someone who might do very well at camp may not be as strong in an actual competition setting…whenever I hear someone say “so and so won camp” I kind of don’t pay attention because it’s not always an accurate indication of who might win at nationals.

I saw that Rebeca Andrade competed a 1.5-twisting double tuck in Ghent, which I don’t think has been named in the CoP. I know she can compete a double double…do you think she put this skill in rather than the double double to get it named for her, or was it more of an endurance decision? If the answer is the latter, how much more effort does it take for a gymnast to add that extra half twist?

It could be because she wants it named for her, but because she was just coming back from injury at the time, it’s possible she wasn’t ready to bring the double double back into her routine yet. I don’t think it’s so much about endurance because it doesn’t take THAT much physical endurance to add another half twist, but it’s more about can you actually get your body mechanics to work quickly and accurately enough to get it around. It’s possible she was underrotating the twists or rotations in the double double because she grew a bit or was out of practice, not so much because she lacked endurance.

Is Simone Biles’ domination a good thing in the sport? Does it help motivate other competitors to upgrade a lot? I have a feeling that everyone is going to upgrade a ton in the next year to try and beat her. It would be such an exciting Olympics!

I think it’s a good thing, yes. It definitely motivates others…I know one gymnast on the Worlds team last year said she was so inspired to get to train with Simone every day for those two weeks in Nanning, it completely lit a fire under her to get stronger (and it’s worked!). And Mykayla Skinner was saying at the American Cup that competing with Simone you kind of know what you’re up against but you still have to believe that you can win even if you know you realistically can’t…and that motivates her to perform better.

I know some people have said things along the lines of having someone so dominant would deter people from even trying, but if that was the case, no one else would bother competing right now! And yet plenty of gymnasts are. Most definitely have that sense of like, it’s almost impossible to beat this girl, and they know where they stand in the grand scheme of things, but there’s still that super strong desire to try to beat her so to me, it’s definitely a good thing having someone that dominant to kind of light fires under others.

Is Melissa Doucette still planning to attempt to qualify to nationals this year?

She gave it her last attempt at the elite qualifier held at the ranch in May but unfortunately fell just short of qualifying and has now officially retired from the sport. It was a great ride, though! We loved following an adult gymnast on her elite journey.

Have a question? Ask below! Remember that the form directly below this line is for questions; to comment, keep scrolling to the bottom of the page.

Article by Lauren Hopkins