It’s time for the 93rd 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.

How do you think Kyla Ross will do in competition at UCLA?

I think she’ll be awesome. NCAA competition is all about killer execution, so given that this was Kyla’s strong point at the elite level, I think she’ll come in as a super strong NCAA-level competitor, especially compared to those who may have excelled at the elite level but who struggle to be as clean as they need to be in collegiate gymnastics. I think someone like Miss Val will also be incredible in helping bring Kyla further out of her shell. I’m already drooling waiting for her floor routines.

Kyla’s elite career has reminded me so much of Bridget Sloan’s – they were both the baby of the Olympic team who came back to kick butt for the first two years of the next quad but then struggled to stay at that level until the next Games. Bridget went on to dominate at the NCAA level from the very start of her freshman year, and I think Kyla has the potential to do the same. Also, since she started to struggle so much with injuries in the latter half of this quad, I’m hoping that the easier training schedule will allow her body to stay healthy.

Do you know why the Americans never (to my knowledge) wear blue in competition?

From what I’ve heard, Martha Karolyi doesn’t like blue because most competition floor mats tend to be blue and she doesn’t want the girls to fade into the background. But honestly, while that may be true within the U.S., most international floors tend to be that that white/cream color and many of the arenas have been decked out in pink, so you could argue that the pink and red they tend to wear most often in competition makes them blend in far more than blue would. Leo colors since 2009 seem to follow the tradition of pink in qualifications and red in team finals, so maybe they’re seeing a bit of luck in that color combo and don’t want to change things up out of superstition? It would be nice to get blue for the individual finals, but even blue club leos tend to be rare, with most of those we see at classics or nationals following the pink, purple, and red color scheme from the national team leos.

Do you know what happened to Maile O’Keefe this year? She was originally named to the Gymnix team, so presumably she was added to the national team as well. Was she taken off the national team after this?

She was actually on the nominative list for the Gymnix team, but when they held the verification for Gymnix at the ranch, she didn’t make the team itself. The only juniors who got added to the national team were those who competed at Gymnix and Jesolo, so because Maile never made the actual teams, she also never made the national team. Nominative team entries are basically placeholders based on who Martha Karolyi thinks she’ll send based on the previous camp, but anything can change and no team is official until the verification camp is done.

Do you know why Rebecca Tunney was replaced by Gabby Jupp on the European Championships team?

I heard that she wasn’t fully prepared, so you can take that as you want to, I guess…either her routines weren’t fully ready to be in a place to help the team or she was falling in training beforehand or something like that. Either way, Gabby proved like she was the stronger option at the time and replaced Rebecca for that reason.

In the 2012 Olympic Games, only three gymnasts there without full teams qualified for the all-around final. Are there any improvements to increase the diversity of the gymnasts coming in the next code of points?

Nope. The change in the coming code of points could actually limit the diversity of those who will make it to the Olympics, given that countries that can only send one gymnast at the moment will be able to have the option to send multiple individuals in the next quad (which would benefit nations with multiple strong options but no full team spot, like Romania, Australia, Switzerland, Mexico, Slovenia, and Hungary, to name a few in that position this quad). The only ways to increase diversity in the all-around final would be to allow for a higher number to compete in the final (it used to be 36), or to reduce it to one-per-country. Or both. With so many people against the two-per-country rule, I highly doubt one-per-country would ever land well, because while it would increase diversity, it would really make the fight for gold SO boring. In my opinion, opening it back up to 36 would be the best option and it’s kind of a shame that they don’t do it. For everything the FIG says about wanting to increase diversity, the two-per-country rule actually doesn’t allow for much diversity at all but two-per-country in a 36-person field would definitely create more spots for those from smaller programs. Even if two girls from each country there with a full team made it in, there would still be 12 spots for girls there as individuals, as opposed to the three that made it in in 2012.

Did Romania do poorly at the test event because they weren’t mentally there or physically ready?

Romania actually did almost exactly as I thought they’d do, and it’s not even because they had a necessarily bad meet. It wasn’t a great meet, sure, but compared to the other teams there, they just didn’t have the routines that would’ve qualified them to the Olympics even with a fully hit day. When you’re missing two top competitors (Larisa Iordache and Laura Jurca) in a country with almost no depth, that hurts. A lot. At full health they only have five gymnasts competing at a decent elite level, so those two injuries plus downgraded routines from Ana Maria Ocolisan (who was still coming back from injury at the time the test event rolled around) meant cutting their elite team in half. Their only other options were basically gymnasts who could barely hit their level 10 routines well enough to pull in strong e-scores (like, Dora Vulcan is gorgeous to watch on floor but she’s doing a level 10 routine and she still can barely get through it). Compare that to countries like Brazil, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Australia, all of which had a couple of standout all-arounders apiece and then a few good specialists to fill in other holes.

Romania had one strong specialist in Catalina Ponor, a decent all-arounder in Diana Bulimar, Ana Maria coming back from injury, and then three girls with almost no experience, just trying to do their best. Romania only actually counted three falls, and yet they were four points behind France, the final qualifying team. It wasn’t about having a meltdown of a day or not being mentally or physically prepared. It’s because they were missing two of their top gymnasts and had zero depth to choose from that could make up for those losses. You can’t replace a 59 AA gymnast like Larisa with a gymnast like Dora, who can barely get a 53 AA on a good day. When other teams have injuries, they have enough depth so that the girls coming in are scoring within a couple of points of the girls they’re losing, but Romania has to replace a world class athlete with someone nowhere near her level, and that hurts them…a lot. Again, counting no falls, Romania wouldn’t have made it. They were simply too far behind without Larisa and Laura, and had no way to make up for those losses. It wasn’t a mental or physical preparation problem, but rather a depth problem, one that will continue into the next quad if they don’t start figuring out how to transition juniors to the senior level.

For a first-time spectator at an elite gymnastics competition in real life (St. Louis this weekend!), what sort of advice do you have? What should you expect when attending? Any tips?

They open the doors about an hour before the competition starts, and I’d say get there as soon as that happens because there’s SO much going on both inside the arena and in the hall outside. The hall outside has all kinds of booths and things like that, which can be fun especially if you’re going with kids, and you can buy merchandise as well. But inside, the gymnasts are doing their pre-meet training, which can be really interesting to watch how they all warm-up before they actually compete.

During the meet it can be tricky to follow everything when there are four routines going on at a time, so if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to miss a certain athlete’s routines, maybe print out the start list (available on the USA Gymnastics website) and highlight who you really want to see so it’s easier to follow along. They do announce some competitors, but if a gymnast is starting her vault in the middle of another girl’s beam routine or floor exercise, they likely won’t announce because it becomes a distraction.

The scores go up around the perimeter of the arena and are easy to miss, so you also might want to download the myUSAgym app if you care about scores. I typically miss most scores when I’m at a meet because I’m more invested in the routines and don’t like looking up every ten seconds to see if I’m going to miss a score flashing…and then I check the app at the end of the meet to see who won and see how certain routines were scored. They do generally post the rotation leaders on the big screen in the middle of the arena between each rotation, so there is that if you want to see scores without following them like crazy.

And it probably goes without saying, but have fun! You know USA Gymnastics puts up the videos of every routine online now so don’t feel bad if you missed something and don’t stress…just watch what you can and enjoy the show. Depending on where you’re sitting, it can be really difficult to see everything at once…usually for USA Gym meets I’m on the side by bars so I have a view of the whole arena right in front of me, but at the Olympic Test Event they sat me dead center in front of the floor, which made it really hard to watch multiple events at once because I’d have to turn right to see bars and then turn left to see beam. If I wasn’t there for work/live blogging, I wouldn’t have been going crazy trying to catch everything and would’ve tried to just enjoy what I COULD see all at once.

To wrap up with some rules/etiquette, don’t take flash pictures because it’s super distracting and annoying, but feel free to take non-flash pictures. Video also isn’t allowed, and it’s really kind of a bummer to look up into the stands and see hundreds of people watching the routines on their phones as they video when they have live gymnastics just feet away from their faces, but if you do break the rules and decide to video, try to keep your eyes off the screen so you can actually experience it!

Finally, there will be a million kids in the arena who aren’t die-hard fans of the sport. In fact, the ratio of die-hards to parents and kids who picked up tickets from their gym and can’t tell Nastia from Nadia is like 1 to 1000 at U.S. meets so be prepared for people getting up in your row to get food every two seconds, throwing popcorn all over the place, playing games on their phones, and being otherwise annoying. Over-the-top eye rolls and loud sighs won’t make them stop, but it will make you feel a little bit better.

When will each country name their Olympic team? Do you know?

Check out our master team list! We have the nations listed who have already confirmed their teams or individual competitors, and for teams that haven’t yet been named, we have the selection/announcement dates listed. We have been updating regularly as soon as we find out, and all of our new team announcements go up on our coverage guide as well.

Al Fong is posting that Brenna Dowell is going back to Oklahoma. Is she not trying for the Olympics anymore? What happened?

I think Al Fong just worded his blog weirdly. In saying “here are some skills you’ll never get to see Brenna do at the Olympics or worlds because she’s going back to Oklahoma,” he meant that they were skills she worked on throughout her time in training and they were never able to put them into routines, and since she’s going back to OU this year rather than staying in elite, we won’t ever get to see them actually competed (unless she comes back for 2020 which I am all for). It was kind of showing off what else she could do that didn’t make her full routines, not meant to be an announcement of her going back to school and skipping out on trying to make it to the Olympics.

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Article by Lauren Hopkins