It’s time for the 68th 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.

You mentioned Alysha Djuric from Australia in your list of those turning senior in 2016, but she hasn’t competed this year or gone to any training camps. Is she out on injury or retiring?

Everyone on that list is someone still registered with an FIG license, but some have retired and just haven’t disappeared from the registry yet. From what it looks like on her social media, she is not currently doing gymnastics, though there hasn’t been any sort of announcement about her retirement.

Who won the Top Gym meet in Charleroi this year?

For the first time in competition history, a Belgian gymnast – Axelle Klinckaert – won the meet! Klinckaert earned a 55.316, besting teammate Senna Deriks (silver medalist with 54.883) and Uliana Perebinosova of Russia (bronze medalist with 54.033) to earn the gold. Klinckaert also won vault and floor gold, while Alison Lepin of France topped the bars podium and Angelina Simakova of Russia won beam.

Is there any update on Norah Flatley’s training? Do you think she still has a shot for Rio?

There have been a few video updates of some skills here and there and she is looking fantastic. She is training a layout full on beam (currently working on the low beam) and also showed an Endo full straight to Jaeger on bars. I absolutely think she has a shot for Rio. Even if she’s not quite as strong at vault or floor and therefore may not be a big all-around threat, her bars and beam have so much potential and I can definitely see her as the Kyla Ross of 2016. I think Chow is going to have a lot of tricks up his sleeve with Norah and I can’t wait.

What do you think about floor exercises that use aerials to count as their forward tumbling elements? I hate that. Why do gymnasts invest a lot of time to learn high-difficulty backwards elements but only perform A skills for their forward element? Is it really so difficult to perform a double front, arabian, or front layout twisting salto?

I don’t love it but I do think it’s smart of gymnasts and their coaches to take advantage of loopholes in the code of points…it’s not their fault the FIG didn’t put some sort of restriction on this, kind of like the excessive jumps out of tumbling passes employed by some gymnasts last quad in order to boost difficulty when they couldn’t get it from tumbling or dance elements alone. It’s not technically ‘cheating’ if there’s no rule that forbids it…it’s just a sneaky way to get out of it.

I don’t see it really being abused, as I would say a majority of gymnasts do some sort of legit front tumbling in their routines, but for the gymnasts who don’t do it, it’s not so much that they didn’t learn front tumbling. It’s probably more that they can do multiple G or H-level back tumbling passes but max out at E for their front tumbling, so why waste a pass doing a skill worth several tenths less when you can do something more difficult?

The most difficult front tumbling is the layout double arabian at a G, which is literally never done. Then you have three skills at the F rating – the Dos Santos (piked double arabian), the Podkopayeva (double front half), and the Dowell (piked double front) – are rarely, if ever, competed. I can’t remember the last time I saw the Podkopayeva, six gymnasts competed the Dos Santos (including Aly Raisman, Ellie Downie, Leticia Costa, and Lorrane Oliveira at worlds), and Brenna Dowell was the only one to compete her eponymous skill.

Look at Simone Biles’ tumbling, for example. She does a full-twisting double layout, a Biles, a double double, and a tucked full-in, skills rated at H, G, H, and E. So she has one E skill in there that could be replaced by front tumbling, but a tucked full-in is monumentally easier for most gymnasts than any of the E-level front tumbling skills, which include a tucked double front, a double arabian, and a layout front 2.5. I’m sure Simone has it in her to bust out a double arabian or something, but her routine is already stacked and it would be insane if she had a double arabian as her final pass. If it’s easier for her to casually throw a front aerial somewhere in her routine to get rid of the requirement and then finish her routine with the easier tucked full-in, why not get away with it?

I honestly think all front tumbling needs to be bumped up a letter value in the code of points. The fact that a double layout – a skill many elites do with ease – is rated higher than a layout front 2.5 – a skill I’ve only seen competed once this quad – is crazy to me.

I’m curious to know why many gym fans have negative feelings about Gymnastike, aka FloGymnastics. From my distant perspective, it seems like a great resource. What am I missing?

They are actually a fantastic resource and literally changed how gym fans see the sport when they started bringing meet videos and in-depth coverage, which prompted USA Gymnastics to follow suit in order to keep up. I remember even in 2009 trying to follow the juniors at nationals and being able to rely only on the occasional tweet here or there, and then within five years you were able to watch the juniors live with Olympians doing commentary.

Their parent company has unfortunately made some decisions that didn’t go over well with gym fans, mostly minor faults but last summer they chose to link to underage naked pictures of McKayla Maroney and when fans complained, the content director replied by saying “keep complaining, we’re loving the hits we’re getting” or something. Very shady, and it took them several days to take it down, and that was only when they were threatened with the loss of credentials.

With that, I think it’s important to differentiate between FloGymnastics and the girls involved with that particular site, who do an incredible job with their coverage, and the parent company Flocasts, run by businessmen, not gymnastics fans. I know during the Maroney scandal, I received a couple of emails from Flocasts employees saying they too were against having the photos linked, and I believe everyone involved with FloGymnastics wanted it deleted but didn’t have the power to take it down. But as the faces of FloGymnastics, they’re the ones who take the brunt of the public backlash which is super unfair because I think they’re all pretty much former gymnasts who really care about the sport and how it’s covered in the media, and never would choose to do what Flocasts did if they had total control.

So I think the biggest reason for their general dislike in the gym community (especially on Tumblr) comes mostly from the business decisions made by Flocasts, which is unfortunate because they are definitely a great resource.

Any thoughts as to why Emma Malabuyo was at the November national team camp but Colbi Flory and Abigail Walker weren’t?

I believe Emma was invited but Colbi and Abigail weren’t. It looks like they took somewhere around the top 20 juniors, and since Colbi couldn’t do the all-around due to her injury and Abigail was lower-ranked, they weren’t part of the picture whereas Emma was because she was a stronger all-arounder (and without her bars meltdown on day one, would’ve been ranked even higher, which Martha definitely takes into consideration).

Why doesn’t the U.S. host more major international competitions like worlds or Pac Rims? I know getting to host the Olympics is rare but is it the same process with worlds or other major international meets?

It’s an insane amount of work to host international competitions, and they host one every year with American Cup…and also, with Pac Rims, the U.S. has hosted two out of the past three, with 2012 and 2016 both held in Everett, Washington. The U.S. also hosts non-artistic competitions on occasion, like last year’s T&T worlds in Florida. Basically with worlds, cities can apply and the FIG awards the meet to certain cities, but European cities tend to be chosen because multiple countries in Europe are applying whereas elsewhere, you’re getting basically the U.S. and Canada applying on this side of the world, and then China, Japan, and occasionally Australia on the other side.

It would be nice to see a more diverse mix of cities hosting. Like, London had worlds in 2009, the Olympics in 2012, and then Glasgow had worlds in 2015 so like…really, the UK three times in seven years?! However, British Gymnastics does a really great job of taking on hosting duties so I can see why they’d be trusted by the FIG to keep doing it, which is why they’ve also recently hosted European Championships. And I can understand why the U.S. wouldn’t want to necessarily take on the challenge of hosting when they have SO many domestic meets between all of the disciplines in addition to hosting other smaller international meets.  It’s nice to do maybe once a decade but is basically a logistic nightmare and I fully get why they’re not exactly jumping to the task.

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Article by Lauren Hopkins