It’s time for the 49th 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.

How can we see the Secret U.S. Classic this weekend?!

Universal Sports will broadcast the senior session of the Secret U.S. Classic live on Saturday July 25 at 7:30 pm EDT. Click here to find out if you get Universal Sports in your area. You can also watch the Universal Sports webcast as well as the junior session online on the official Secret U.S. Classic website.

Did Emily Gaskins switch gyms again?

Yes, Emily recently moved to Palm Beach Gymnastics in her home state of Florida to train with Steve Nunno, who famously coached Shannon Miller to two Olympic Games, seven Olympic medals, and nine World Championship medals. It seems Emily loves 1996 and is going to give every Olympic coach from that year a try. Kidding, but I love that she brought him back out onto the floor. He’s…a character.

I read that Victoria Nguyen broke her arm training inbars on bars and that Norah Flatley also suffered some kind of foot injury. Do you have any insight into this or know if they’re officially out of Classics? Being national team members guarantees them a spot at nationals either way, right?

They’re both missing out on Classics, unfortunately. I don’t know if Victoria will be healthy enough in time to make it to nationals but I believe Norah skipping out on Classics is precautionary so she won’t have to miss nationals next month. Being a national team member doesn’t guarantee a spot at nationals, but both earned their nationals qualification scores at Jesolo so they’re all set to compete there if they’re ready.

Is Peng Peng Lee trying to get back in shape for elite again? I read your article on Moors and you mentioned Lee and Brittany Rogers trying for elite again. I’ve heard about Brittany but nothing about Peng.

She has stated a desire to continue with elite to try to make the Olympic team in 2016 but so far I haven’t seen anything official from her. Like, Brittany did Canadian Championships, was an alternate for the Pan Am Games team, and is actively training elite (check out this video of her brand new Amanar!) while Peng last I heard was still at UCLA…I believe she was training elite skills with the UCLA staff but I don’t believe she has returned to Canada in the way Brittany has.

I know that it is a deduction when you’re on the high bar and hit your feet on the low, but is it also a deduction when you’re performing a release and on the high bar and hit you feet on the high bar on your way to recatch? Nabieva hit her feet on the high bar when during her laid-out tkatchev during the 2011 Euros bars final, and Komova did the same during the AA in 2011 on the laid-out jaeger, but neither gymnast received a deduction for this.  Is this because the judges didn’t see it, or is it just not a deduction?

How do you know neither gymnast received a deduction for it? Hitting the feet on the bar is part of the execution deductions, not a neutral deduction (like being overtime or stepping OOB on floor), so therefore it would be impossible to tell whether or not the judges deducted it unless we asked them or saw their scoresheets! It’s possible it was deducted but their other elements were strong enough to make the deduction not as noticeable.

It’s also possible that the judges didn’t catch it…I’ve definitely seen routines from close up before where an athlete has hit her foot but I didn’t notice it until I went back and rewatched it, so if someone just clips their toe or something, it’s definitely not unheard of for the judges to either fully miss it or maybe think they saw it but weren’t 100% sure and so gave the gymnast the benefit of the doubt.

Did Rebecca Tunney of Great Britain retire?

She has not retired. She was actually supposed to compete at British Championships this spring, and then was selected for the nominative list for European Games, but I think was replaced because she wasn’t quite ready to come back from injury just yet. Hopefully we’ll see her back this year as the British women hold their selection camps for Worlds! As far as I know it’s still a goal of hers to compete at Rio next year but injuries have made it impossible for her to train and compete.

After the U.S. girls finish a training camp the gymternet is all abuzz about what scores they got. Do they bring in judges to score them? And how does anyone get this information since it doesn’t seem to be public?

Yes, there are verification competitions at many of the national camps (I think every month from February through to the Worlds selection camp) and they’re scored by judges in the same way they’d be scored at an actual competition. Sometimes verification isn’t full routines, or they’ll break routines into two separate pieces so they’re not going as hard as they would in an arena setting, but they’re still judged using the COP. Usually if people know scores it’s because the gymnasts or their coaches are posting them online. like, I know one month Maggie Nichols’ coach posted her scores on Facebook, and then some of the girls on their ask.fm accounts will let people know who placed where. But USA Gymnastics doesn’t publish the results so there are no official results recorded for fans/the general public.

What’s up with that half turn Ellie Black does under the low bar? Doesn’t she get a huge deduction for it since it isn’t in handstand?

It is a switch glide kip, which is used by several gymnasts as nothing more than a way to change direction. Sometimes pirouettes on top of the bar are used for directional changes (like when you see a seemingly random giant half or something) but switch glide kips are also okay for this purpose. There is no deduction in the COP for performing one.

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Article by Lauren Hopkins