It’s time for the 58th 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 (unless they are super relevant and need to be answered in a timely manner). Something you want to know? Ask us anonymously by going through the contact form at the bottom of the page. But if we get one more “where’s McKayla Maroney” question we’re going to burn this website to the ground. WE DON’T KNOW.

What’s the deal with Emily Gaskins? Left again for another gym? I feel there has got to be more to the story. Also, what happened to Poof Beucler? After she left CGA she disappeared…

Emily Gaskins moved to Florida after training at CGA because she wanted to be closer to home. She is still at the same gym in Florida…well, I should say the same set of gyms maybe? Steve Nunno is involved with three gyms in her area…Intensity, Palm Beach, and North Port. I was told Emily trains at a mix of the three, but they’re essentially all tied in together, so no, she didn’t move gyms again after returning to Florida, technically.

Alexis Beucler began training at Brandy Johnson’s after leaving CGA. She began competing level 10 this year and made it to J.O. nationals where she placed 35th after a fall on beam.

Watching the Olympics, I noticed gymnasts were given a ‘penalty’ rather than a regular deduction for stepping out of bounds on floor. Why is that? I presume the ‘penalty’ would ultimately factor into their e-score (for the sake of a tie breaker, for example).

The penalty is taken off of the total score so in a way it works like an execution deduction, but it’s referred to as a ‘neutral deduction’ and is put into its own column as a way to differentiate between form errors and out-of-bounds or timing errors. Timing is a good example because you could have a near-perfect floor routine but your music could be a second over. You technically didn’t do anything wrong, performance-wise, so it shouldn’t count as a hit against your execution…but you broke a rule in the code so you need the deduction. But again, it has nothing to do with execution! Same with stepping out-of-bounds…you could have a perfectly clean pass but maybe just had a little too much power and had to step back. In that case, you’d get the landing deduction docked from your execution but if you also go out-of-bounds, that gets docked as a penalty instead of execution. Form or technical issues vs rule breaking is a good way to look at the distinction!

What are the benefits of being on the U.S. national team? Do the girls have to go to every camp? Do they really receive training money after being named to the team? If so, is it enough money to pay for all training or only partial?

I would say the main benefits are getting the distinction of saying you’re one of the top gymnasts in the country, being invited to the monthly national team camps, receiving a monthly stipend of about $2000 to help cover training costs, and being given the opportunity to be sent to international competitions. The money they get covers a portion of their training costs, though not everything, and yes, they have to go to every camp barring injury. Actually, even with injuries sometimes they’re required to go just so Martha Karolyi can get a sense of where they are physically and in terms of their progress coming back to full routines.

Do you think after Martha retires that USA Gymnastics will still use the Karolyi ranch or do you think they will/should switch it up and maybe add camps to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado?

I believe they are still set on using the ranch, especially because a few years ago the ranch was named an official Olympic Training Center. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Karolyis will the ranch to USA Gymnastics, honestly. They could add camps to the OTC in Colorado, but at the same time, why mess with a good thing if they still have it available to them? I kind of feel that even once retired, Martha will still remain peripherally involved, whether just giving advice or checking in on everyone or whatever. I don’t think she’s going to fully turn her back to it just because she’s not part of the day to day.

What do you think of this Chinese lineup for Worlds? Vault – Wang Yan, Tan Jiaxin, Li Linxi. Bars – Huang Huidan, Tan Jiaxin, Shang Chunsong. Beam – Shang Chunsong, Wang Yan, Huang Huidan/Mao Yi. Floor – Shang Chunsong, Wang Yan, Mao Yi.

I like it and think they could get strong results, but Li Linxi isn’t on the national team and isn’t being considered for Worlds (she’s also not registered with the FIG which wouldn’t make her eligible to compete internationally). Also, I don’t think Mao Yi will factor in, just because I think Chen Siyi is maybe a little more reliable there, especially in light of recent competitions? And then in place of Li Linxi I’d probably have Fan Yilin, move Chen to vault, and then use Fan on bars over Tan. So with these changes, my team would look a little like…

VT- Chen, Tan, Wang
UB- Huang, Shang, Fan
BB- Huang/Fan, Wang, Shang
FX- Chen, Shang, Wang

Going back to Mao Yi…I’d honestly love to see her on the team and think her floor has so much potential but is still a bit too inconsistent and I don’t know who they’d replace to get her floor? I think they’d rather have Chen for her strength overall, and then Fan for her impressive bars. I think Fan and Chen can add more on other events than Mao could add on floor, so even though she’s definitely one of the stronger floor workers, I don’t think it’s enough to make her super valuable without having something to offer elsewhere.

What do you think are the chances of the returning Olympians in the U.S. to make it onto the U.S. team for Rio?

I think they honestly have very good chances. In the past, comebacks haven’t worked out because former Olympians haven’t been able to get back to where they were, thus putting them behind the younger athletes coming up the ranks…but now the returning Olympians are getting back all of their old skills and abilities putting them on par with the newbies, so they have just as much of a chance as anyone else, which is crazy and awesome. I think Gabby and Aly have the strongest shots right now, just knowing that they already look so good a year out and still have the potential for growth.

Has anyone ever tried to start their floor tumbling straight from the back handspring? You’d lose a lot of momentum but gain a lot of floorspace and potential for connection bonuses. It works on beam…

It works on beam because the beam is only 16 feet long and nobody is doing double layouts on it. The gain from the space saved would not outweigh the lack of momentum and form issues (both of which incur a deduction) that result from that kind of tumbling pass.

McKenna Kelley has received a lot of attention mainly because of her mother, Mary Lou Retton. It seemed like she was at several camps and made a push for elite this summer before leaving for LSU. Do you know if she ever qualified elite? Was hoping she would and that we’d see her at Classics.

Yes, she was at a few of the camps this spring and I believe her main goal was to make the Pan Ams team. She didn’t qualify for elite, however, so after the camp in early June she took her focus off of elite and is now fully dedicated to beginning her freshman year at LSU.

Do you think Florida has another shot at the national title with a new coach now that Rhonda Faehn has left?

I think they have as good a shot as anyone, especially with the talent they have and will hopefully continue to pull in. Aside from current athletes like Bridget Sloan, Alex McMurtry, and Kennedy Baker, several younger elites have verbally committed to Florida. While verbal commitments can often mean little (people change their minds), I think they will still be pulling in top talent for years to come thanks to Rhonda Faehn’s great work in building the program and leaving it in capable hands.

From the 1900s to today, we’ve seen a lot of changes in the WAG events. Like, women used to do parallel bars, the uneven bars got wider, and the vault changed from a horse to a table. Do you think we’ll ever see any other big changes made in the WAG program, like a drastic change to one apparatus or maybe even the introduction of a new event?

The vault was changed to make it safer for gymnasts to be performing higher difficulty vaults. I can’t imagine a way to make any of the current apparatuses safer than they already are, and I don’t see the need for the introduction of a new one. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, you know? There was a proposed change for a wider balance beam a couple of years ago but I don’t think anyone took it seriously…I believe someone asked Mackenzie Caquatto back when she was elite if she would prefer a wider beam and she was like “uh, I would hate it, because we’re just going to have to do even harder skills!” I think if anything, events could potentially evolve in that way to create the opportunity for more difficult elements? Like how the bounciness of the floor made gymnasts more able to tumble higher, and how the widening of the bars made new transitions possible…but seeing as there hasn’t been any real overhaul of the women’s apparatuses (i.e. getting rid of old events or adding new) since the 1960s – fifty years ago – it doesn’t seem likely that anything major like this will happen, though you never know what kind of evolution current apparatuses will go through to either promote safety or higher difficulty.

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Article by Sarah Chrane and Lauren Hopkins