It’s time for the 91st 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.

I was looking at results for Australian Championships and they had a column listed as hijinx points. What are those?

They are actually completely unrelated to the gymnastics itself, and don’t affect the finishes of individual competitors. Gymnastics Australia has team championships in addition to individual, with each state/territory contending for team titles at each level, and then each state fighting for the overall best of the championships. In addition to gymnastics deciding who’s best, the fans who attend the meet are given points based on their participation, like with screaming and cheering and waving flags and banners and pompoms and things like that. These hijinx points are tallied to see which state is the best in that sense, as more of a fun way to get the fans involved than anything having to do with the sport itself!

What happened to Arianna Agrapides?

Arianna decided to take a break from gymnastics for a little while to run track, and then she changed gyms from MG Elite to Premier Gymnastics, where she is currently competing level 10. This year, she only competed at a couple of invitationals in January, and then I believe she got injured and couldn’t finish out the season.

What does “CR” mean when calculating the d-score in a routine?

The d-score is made up of three components…skills, connection bonuses, and the CR, which stands for ‘composition requirements.’ Compositional requirements are the five “must-have” elements in every routine, each worth 0.5 to add to a total of 2.5. If you have all five requirements, you get the full 2.5. The required elements differ between bars, beam, and floor, so I’ve included each below…

Uneven Bars
* Flight between bars (low to high and high to low)
* Same-bar release skill
* Non-flight element with 360 degree turn (full pirouette)
* Different grips (forward and backward elements)
* D+ dismount

Balance Beam
* Connection of two dance elements (one must be 180 split)
* Full turn on one foot
* Flight series
* Acro skills both forward and backward
* D+ dismount

Floor Exercise
* Connection of two dance elements (one must be 180 split)
* Saltos both forward/sideways and backward
* Double saltos
* Saltos with a minimum of one full twist
* D+ dismount

So let’s look at beam for an example. If you have any combo of dance elements where one is at a full split (split jump to sissone, switch half to full turn), a full turn in any position (wolf, L turn, turn in passé), a flight series in which two or more acro skills are combined with at least one seeing flight (bhs to loso, bhs bhs to layout, side aerial to loso), acro skills in both directions (a front aerial or front tuck in one part of the routine, and then a bhs loso or a standing back tuck full later on, for example), and any dismount rated at a D or higher (most go with double tucks or 2.5s to fulfill this), you get an automatic 2.5 points added to your D score. But if you miss one of these, you lose 0.5 for any that you don’t complete.

For example, a full pirouette in passé is only an A skill, worth just 0.1. The eight most difficult skills are counted into the ‘skills’ part of the d-score, and most elites will generally don’t count A skills (on average, elites tend to count all skills at C or higher), so that 0.1 pirouette wouldn’t even factor into the difficulty score aside from in the CR. However, because each of the CR elements are worth 0.5, if you miss your full pirouette, you would knock off 0.5 from your 2.5 CR, which is a pretty heavy blow to your d-score. Emma Nedov of Australia normally has a d-score around 6.0, but in event finals at nationals, she missed her full turn and saw her d-score go from a 6.0 (which would’ve been the second-highest in the beam final) to just a 5.5 (which was sixth best in a field of eight). Given that she scored a 13.8 with the missing CR and the gold medalist had a 14.025, had she not missed the turn, she would’ve been the country’s beam champion, so for a relatively easy skill, missing it ended up being a crucial mistake.

Most gymnasts are able to think on their feet on beam, though, and know how to fix it if they miss a CR. In NCAA, where the code has similar requirements, many gymnasts do front aerial to back handspring combinations for their flight series, but this past year so many girls had problems with this, going too slowly from one into the other or missing their footing on the front aerial making them unable to connect into the next skill. Most gymnasts would either just repeat the combination, or later in the routine, add in a back handspring to layout stepout flight series, which isn’t as difficult, but covers the CR. At the elite level, I’ve often seen gymnasts with landing errors between dance elements causing them to miss that required connection, but then they typically have a backup where they’re able to throw in a split jump or another easy A element in front of or after another dance element to make up for it.

How do you qualify to U.S. nationals? Is it over for Bailie Key and Norah Flatley? Can you participate at nationals or the Olympics without the U.S. Classic?

Senior gymnasts qualify to U.S. nationals if they were one of the seven members of the worlds team that traveled to Glasgow in 2015, or if they earned scores of 54+ in the all-around at either of the classics, at an international assignment, or in verification at a national team training camp in fall 2015 or spring 2016 (there are also qualifying scores of 41.25 for gymnasts who compete three events and 28.0 for those who compete two events). Bailie qualified to nationals thanks to her performance at the worlds selection camp verification last year, but Norah didn’t compete at any of the qualifiers and only attended one national team camp, where she didn’t compete in verification. Bailie is eligible to compete at nationals and will be there this week, but Norah unfortunately did not qualify and did not attempt to petition to nationals either, meaning she is done for the season and can’t qualify to trials or make the Olympic Games team.

How do you feel about Isabela Onyshko? I feel like she’s peaking at just the right time, and she seems to get better each time she competes.

I love Isabela and think she was super overlooked earlier this quad with Ellie Black dominating nearly every meet, but when Bela came out at Elite Canada early this year with all of her new upgrades, I was SO happy for her and knew we should expect big things this year. She’s awesome, and has gone from the underdog to the one to beat, which is great for Canada, as both she and Ellie can now push each other to fight to be called ’the best,’ which makes the country even greater as a team. She’s been so consistent and fantastic this year, and yes, with each meet she adds a little bit more and gets stronger each time. She’s quite a work horse (she did the all-around twelve different times in 2012!), can contribute on all four events in a team final, and also has great potential to make the beam final in Rio this summer. Bela is fabulous and I absolutely love seeing her going into the Olympic Games at her peak shape.

After Canadian Championships, who do you think will be on the Olympic team?

I’d say Isabela Onyshko, Ellie Black, Brittany Rogers, and Shallon Olsen are all but locks at the moment, and I think the last spot will be between Rose-Kaying Woo, Madison Copiak, Sabrina Gill, Megan Roberts, and Victoria-Kayen Woo, with Rose Woo and Copiak probably the top two options (I prefer Woo’s gymnastics, but Copiak has hit 100% of her bar routines in 2016 and is generally a rock in competition). We’ll see what happens at trials, because some girls have definitely been holding back a bit this season (Rose Woo has been injured but is feeling much better, for example) but I think this could be an incredibly successful team in Rio no matter who is in that fifth spot!

Why was Aly Raisman the only big Rio contender who competed all four events? Were that many girls injured? What happened there?

Basically, in any other year, U.S. gymnasts compete three times in the summer (once at classics, twice at nationals) and then have a couple of months to train and prepare for worlds selection camp. Doing all four events at classics is more common in non-Olympic years because it’s a good way to get practice in when there are so few competitive opportunities. In the Olympic year, gymnasts compete five times in about a one-month stretch (once at classics, twice at nationals, twice at trials), and then go into an intensive training camp before competing at the Olympics, with the time span only two months between classics and the Games.

Instead of competing the all-around five times between June and July, most opt to attend classics as a practice for the upcoming nationals and trials, either getting dress rehearsal routines for their worst events out of the way, or doing their best events to get more experience where they’d most likely be used in a team situation. With mistakes in competitions over the past year, I think Aly felt that she had something to prove on all four events, and she felt her body could handle it, so she went for it…and I’m glad she did, because it ended up being a great fight for her. But the others who opted to do only a handful of events were mostly doing so because they wanted to save their bodies for when it really matters – nationals and trials. It’s usually not because of a current injury, but rather to prevent injury in the future. Basically, if you’re in the mix, classics doesn’t matter. It’s literally a practice meet, a way to get the nerves out of the way in front of a crowd before you have to really start impressing. Don’t read too much into who does what at classics.

Do you think anyone’s stock went significantly up or down following classics? Were there any emerging dark horses?

For me, I think Aly Raisman went from a hopeful to an almost definite, showing that she was an insanely good mental competitor, coming back from a fall on her first event to nail some of her best routines of the quad on the remaining three, including a very strong Amanar and great connections on her usually tricky beam. With some of the up-and-coming new seniors on her tail, I think she showed exactly why Martha Karolyi should trust her at the Games once again, and I hope this meet helps her confidence go through the roof for nationals and trials.

In terms of a dark horse, there’s no one really who stands out to me as someone who will make the team…there are plenty of great girls, but no one who screamed “look at me!” as someone who made sense as a real team contributor. Alyssa Baumann probably comes closest, but she really only has one event the team could use in the final, so I don’t see her as much of a threat. My honorable mention goes to Amelia Hundley, who had an awesome day with a fantastic DTY vault and an excellent bars routine. Again, I don’t think she’ll factor in, but I do hope she gets an alternate spot or at the very least makes trials because she’s been so strong and has improved so much since she debuted at age twelve, and she looked great at classics even if she doesn’t have the greatest difficulty or the flashiest routines.

Do you know why Sydney Johnson-Scharpf was taken off of the classics roster? I thought she was just at camp.

She possibly just decided she wasn’t ready for classics for whatever reason (nursing an injury, still getting routines together) and opted to go straight to nationals since she had already qualified to nationals through her scores at the national team verifications. She probably could’ve gone and done an event or two, but if she didn’t feel fully prepared, it likely just made more sense for her to stay home.

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Article by Lauren Hopkins