It’s time for the 87th 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.

What are your views on the vault changes that bring this event down to match the difficulty levels of other events? Do you think strong vaulters in the current code do worse or better than someone stronger on another piece but weaker on vault? Will this change in the next quad?

Actually, the vault d-scores are only being reduced because the CR for bars, beam, and floor is being reduced from 2.5 to 2.0. On average, vaults are losing about 0.3-0.5 in difficulty across the board to stay consistent with the remainder of the events, not to decrease them in favor of the others. I do think vault is a bit of a boost for many all-around competitors who excel there, but more for the execution, not the difficulty. Only a handful of vaulters are doing the most difficult vaults like Rudis, Amanars, DTTs, and Chengs, and even these are rated at about 6.0-6.5. Compare this to the other events, where d-scores around a 6.0 are considered average and the top gymnasts are reaching for 6.5 or higher.

Let’s do a little study using the top eight all-arounders at worlds just for fun.

Vault – High 6.3, Low 5.0, Average 5.8125
Bars – High 6.7, Low 5.6, Average 6.025
Beam – High 6.3, Low 5.5, Average 5.975
Floor – High 6.8, Low 5.7, Average 6.1

Vault difficulty is actually the lowest on average for the best all-arounders in the world. Five of the top eight competed DTYs at a 5.8 start value. These same gymnasts averaged higher scores on all three other events, with gymnasts competing DTYs averaging 5.94 on bars, 5.92 on beam, and 5.9 on floor. So why is vault considered to be an “unfair difficulty advantage” when overall it’s the weakest in the field? For the silver and bronze medalists in 2015, vault was the lowest for both at 5.8, and for Shang Chunsong in fourth place, her FTY at a 5.0 was a full 1.7 points behind her bars at a 6.7 in difficulty. Wouldn’t bars, beam, and floor then offer unfair difficulty advantages?

The problem with vault isn’t difficulty. It’s execution. Because it’s such a quick event, with only one skill compared to eight, there’s less to deduct from making it easier to score a 9+ e-score (and several vaults are even reaching 9.5+). Let’s look at the e-scores the same way we looked at d-scores for the top eight.

Vault – High 9.533, Low 8.866, Average 9.287
Bars – High 8.8, Low 8.133, Average 8.392
Beam – High 8.5, Low 7.3, Average 8.137
Floor – High 8.766, Low 7.933, Average 8.439

So basically vault on average gets execution scores a full point higher than any other event. What I’ve been saying for a few years now is that in order to even things up, vault deductions should be double (or at least multiplied) what they are. A small step gets two tenths instead of one, a larger step gets six tenths instead of three, a two-tenth form deduction in the air gets four tenths, a fall gets two points off, and so on. I do think the difficulty for big vaults should be rewarded, and then if a gymnast like McKayla Maroney in 2012 or Simone now hits a near-perfect Amanar, their minimal 0.2-0.3 in deductions become 0.4-0.6 when doubled which still results in huge e-scores of 9.4-9.6. But when you see a vault with a fall getting the same e-score as a hit bars or beam routine, it’s a bit discouraging, so I do think the technical committee should re-evaluate how vault execution is handled. Even if my way isn’t the best option, I think the current method is what makes them score so much higher than the longer events. A near-perfect bars  or beam or floor routine won’t get more than a low 9 in execution which is what average vaults are getting and that’s a problem.

Do you know why Amy Tinkler has not been selected for Great Britain’s European Championships team?

Amy has exams at school and has decided to focus on her exams rather than stress about a high-level competition while also studying. It will not affect her chances at making Great Britain’s Olympic team.

What happened between 2008 and 2012 to cause bars scores to go down so much? Was there some sort of code change? We saw start values of 7.7-7.9 in Beijing but nothing above about a 7.1 in London.

Yes, there was a code change! In the former code, d-scores included ten skills whereas now they only count eight, which is the case on beam and floor in addition to bars. So for example, say a bars routine in 2008 had two F’s, four E’s, and four D’s counted into the total of ten skills. In the next quad, they modify that routine to drop two of the D skills for a total of eight skills. Since D skills are rated at 0.4 each, it means you’re losing 0.8 from the routine, taking it from like a 7.3 to a 6.1. So the 7.7 bar routines from Beijing modified to fit today’s code would be probably closer to 6.5-6.7 depending on what got dropped.

I’ve seen a lot of references to “Russian style” and “Chinese style” bar routines, as compared to American style. What makes their routines difficult and more challenging?

“Russian style” typically refers to a lot of inbar skills, piked Jaegers, and full-out dismounts as well as a lot of connected skills (like inbar full to Komova II to pak to Chow or something) in the early half of the routine, which is how most routines are constructed. “Chinese style” refers more to lots of intricate pirouette work, mostly from front giants, including the Ono to Healy to front 1.5 combination that all of the best Chinese bar workers include in their routines. I don’t know if there’s a real American style right now…I think many of the top U.S. bar workers have adopted more of the Russian style with six or seven connected skills at the beginning before a single-bar release and a dismount (both Madison Kocian and Ashton Locklear do this). But there’s a lot of variety in U.S. bar routines lately, which is fun because you see many gymnasts trying out unique combinations and skills like Brenna Dowell’s old Tweddle to Ezhova, a couple of Maloney to Tkachev combos, some Weiler kips, some Bhardwaj skills, etc. A few of the Russians and Chinese also try to mix it up…like Seda Tutkhalyan has a very anti-Russian routine, but for the most part, you’re seeing nearly identical routines and for good reason – they work. Combining a bunch of D and E transition skills like the Russians or doing a million front giant pirouettes all in connection like the Chinese are both excellent ways to build difficulty scores without throwing big and risky release skills.

Why are some elements limited in how difficult they are rated in the code of points? I’m thinking bar transfers, dance elements, etc.

My guess is that’s because the technical committee believes that no transition skill on bars comes close to matching the level of difficulty of the hardest single-bar releases or dismounts, just as no dance elements on beam or floor can match the most difficult tumbling or acro elements. In a way, it’s true, but I think it’s unfair and limiting especially on beam and floor where some gymnasts are much better at dance elements than they are as natural tumblers, and yet it’s the powerful girls who get to build huge start values with H and even I-level skills while the girls attempting triple Y turns and quad pirouettes are limited to just E skills. Like, no, a quad pirouette doesn’t come close to a double-twisting double layout. But at the same time, capping these skills at E doesn’t give much of an incentive to get girls to go beyond what they’re already doing. Why do a quintuple spin when you’d get the same for a quad? It limits innovation. There may be some girls who still want to go for it because they want a skill named for them, but for the most part the objective isn’t to get a skill named – it’s to hit in competition, and if the risk isn’t worth the benefit, there’s no point in doing it. On bars it’s definitely silly, especially when skills like the Komova and Komova II are both an E despite one having a half twist whereas there is a difference from D to E between the Maloney and van Leeuwen, and the fact that the Seitz is the same as a van Leeuwen is also ridiculous. Look at some of the F release skills – many bar workers are competing Shangs and Downies now. But literally no one competes the Seitz. If it was worth an F, maybe they’d go for it, but it’s not worth it when they can do the much easier van Leeuwen and get the same skill value.

Is Catherine Lyons injured?

She has been dealing with injury, yes, and has not competed yet in 2016. In fact, the last time we saw her was at 2015 British Championships last March, so I don’t think she’ll be able to contend really at all this year for the Rio squad, sadly. She didn’t have a major injury but rather little nagging injuries that limited her, from what I’ve heard.

What’s the status of Norah Flatley and Victoria Nguyen? Have they been going to camp? Will they be competing at the U.S. Classic?

They’re both at the current camp and are planning on competing at the U.S. Classic, though I’m not sure in what capacity (i.e. if they’ll do all-around or just stick to a couple of events). I know both had minor surgery a couple of months ago, with Norah’s on her foot, so she might be limited to bars and beam? But I’m not totally sure and haven’t really heard any concrete updates about her training following the surgery, though it’s promising that she’s back at camp now.

What does it mean to be a reserve team for Rio? What confluence of events would have either team go to Rio over one of the other teams that qualified?

Basically one of the teams currently planning on attending Rio would have to back out. It’s very rare and almost never happens. For MAG this year, the Belarusians qualified a full team to the test event but didn’t think they’d be successful in qualifying to the Olympic Games and thus decided to back out, giving the Belgian men a chance to compete as a full team so in that case a reserve team got to step in, but qualifying a full team to the Olympic Games is a different story…I think even if one of the qualified teams loses 80% of its top athletes to injury and doesn’t have a shot at anything but last place, they’d definitely still go because at that point, they have nothing to lose.

Do you know why the U.S. women always wear pink?

Martha has said that she really likes the color and that it generally looks good against the background of most arenas. They generally only wear pink in qualifications at major competitions like worlds or the Olympics, and it’s become kind of a tradition over the past seven or eight years. Most of the girls enjoy it as well. They tend to stick to more patriotic colors in finals, the team final is pretty much ALWAYS red (sometimes with white/blue accents), and while some gymnasts opt for more magentas or purples in finals, there are lots of patriotic leos there as well. That bubblegum pink is just a qualifications thing, and many other countries opt to wear leos that don’t reflect the national colors. For some reason only the U.S. tends to get flak for it.

What happened to Alexis Vasquez?

Alexis decided to switch back to level 10 after dealing with various injuries. She moved to Iowa to train as an elite with Chow, but ultimately thought it was best to move home to California and train at the J.O. level.

When a gymnast retires/graduates from elite or NCAA gymnastics do they typically quit cold turkey or do they keep going to the gym with reduced hours and lower level skills? I’d think cold turkey would be rough on their bodies.

It depends on the gymnast…some do play around in the gym with skills, especially if they end up moving into a coaching job or something, but many do tend to stay active even if they don’t have access to a gymnastics facility every day. Some go to Cross Fit or take up running or just go to the regular old gym. Many also allow their bodies to take breaks after spending the majority of their lives as high-level athletes, but with that level of fitness drilled into your brain as a young kid, it’s rare that someone will just like, stop working out completely so even if they’re not doing tumbling passes or uneven bars every day, they’re still staying fit in other capacities.

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Article by Lauren Hopkins