It’s time for the 94th 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 recently started a sports blog (for lacrosse) and I was wondering how your blog became so successful? How did the word spread about The Gymternet? Any advice?

What helped me was already having my foot in the door as someone who had spent four years covering gymnastics for other websites. I started writing for a popular site in 2010 and after a couple of years writing there, people started following me personally on social media. When I started my website in 2014, I already had people interested right off the bat because they knew me and what kind of content to expect. A few people found us through google searches, but most of our readers came from people sharing our posts on Facebook or Twitter. It grew quickly but that’s because it already had an audience the second we went live…and I don’t think it would’ve had a quarter of the success it did without having a pre-existing readership. So my advice, especially in niche sports, is to start writing for someone who has already been established as a popular site and then branch off from there once you know more people interested in the sport who enjoy what you write and want to share the content you’re putting out.

How do you find out which college gymnasts are on scholarships and which are walk-ons?

It’s not always fully publicly available, I don’t think…usually I know when someone’s a walk-on because commentators mention it in a broadcast or I read about it on the program’s website or something.

Why do some countries have an event finals day at nationals but others don’t?

Most countries have two days of competition at nationals, but some opt to do two all-around competitions whereas others do an all-around and event finals. I kind of prefer the two all-around days because it gives everyone the chance to compete all four events twice, which makes it easier to determine who is actually stronger compared to who had a fluke bad day or something. If you’re using nationals to pick teams, a strong team contender for a bars spot who falls twice on day one and doesn’t make finals wouldn’t get a chance to prove herself again if she doesn’t make event finals, so I think it really limits the field (unless you’re from a really small program with only, like, five girls total at nationals and everyone makes event finals).

Like, this weekend was a good example because in the U.S. you had girls with mistakes in prelims who got another chance to show their work again and did a good job the second time (like Ragan Smith on beam and floor). Compare that to Germany, where Tabea Alt had some mistakes on floor in the all-around competition and didn’t get to repeat her routine – which included new upgrades – in the event finals. Since she’s a big contender for the Olympic team with floor one of the reasons why she’s going, you’d think they’d want to give her as many chances as possible to show what she can do!

What do you think of Laney Madsen? I find her story inspiring but she is never at the big competitions.

She actually qualified to elite this year but opted to wait another year before ‘debuting’ at the national level so she can have more of a chance to reach a high level of competition. I believe she becomes a senior next year so it’s interesting they didn’t want to give her any big experience as a junior, but it’s probably likely that if her routines aren’t fully ready, it made sense to give her another year to clean up before getting on the national scene. She has some great skills, but is way far behind on bars and is still quite messy overall, so it could be better to let her wait before throwing her to the wolves.

Who do you think will take over the national team once Martha Karolyi is gone?

I think it will be Valeri Liukin. He seems to have been building up to that role with his years basically creating the developmental program, and now he’ll get to follow all of his developmental girls up into the elite levels which is great in terms of consistency. But I do think that he won’t be an all-powerful being in the way Martha has been. There’s still a national women’s program with a national staff and committees and board members so decisions won’t come down to one person alone. He’ll be the name behind the decisions and, like Martha, will get all of the blame when things go wrong. But there’s so much more going on behind the scenes, even though Martha will be gone in name, a lot of what she set up will continue to go on exactly as it has been going on for the past decade. Everything they’ve done has been in a way that ensures future success no matter who is in charge, which should make the transition pretty seamless.

Could you give us your thoughts about Rio and the Olympic venue as a whole? I’ve read some sketchy things about Rio’s water and their readiness for the Olympics in general and I saw you posted a few pictures showing many things looking incomplete. What were your impressions overall? Do you think it would be ready in time and did you feel it was athlete-friendly?

I think it’s definitely athlete-friendly and from what I’ve seen looking at pictures of the Olympic Village and everything, it looks like it’ll be awesome for the athletes. I think the biggest problem for the athletes at the test event was getting to and from the venue, because the bus ride from the athlete/media hotel was a half hour on a good day and I was on two bus rides where the driver had no idea where he was going so that half hour extended to an hour at times. But the Olympic Village is super close to the arena (I’m sure they’ll have shuttles or something but it’s easily walkable) so that solves that problem.

The biggest thing I noticed was that nothing was finished and didn’t look like it would ever be ready. But it was mostly superficial things like the outsides of venues and the main entrance to the Olympic Park. I didn’t see how it would be possible to get that all cleaned up with less than four months to go. Just construction everywhere. The traffic was also an issue…many of the venues, including the gymnastics arena, are all in Barra di Tijuca, which was an hour or so from the main part of the city and that’s mostly because the one-lane road there was so jammed, we crawled half the way there, so anyone staying not in that immediate area will have a truly awful time getting there, but at least the athletes are close by (like if you’re planning on staying in Ipanema or something as a spectator, prepare yourself for at least an hour each way). There are just lots of infrastructure issues in addition, where maybe construction crews tried to do things too quickly…when I was there, a newly-built walkway alongside the road that juts out from a cliff over the ocean was knocked down when a wave crashed over it, and that killed a couple of people.

In terms of water, I was told not to drink from faucets and to not get ice in beverages, so I stuck with bottled water and was fine. And in terms of Zika, I didn’t see a single mosquito, so my fears were pretty much put to rest. I think it’s probably more of an issue when you’re more inland, and also when it’s summer (because Brazil is in the southern hemisphere, it’ll actually be winter there during the Games)…but near the ocean and in the Olympic Park area I felt like it just wasn’t humid enough for it to be an issue. I lived in a tropical rainforest once and got bit by mosquitos about 700 times a day because it was so damp and humid. I longed for the days when we could go to the beach because the air was more dry and there wasn’t a mosquito in sight. I felt that way in Brazil, that being close to the shore was the key. I don’t think it will be as much of an issue as people are making it out to be, but bug spray and mosquito nets exist for people who are a bit more on edge about it.

Could you come up with a list of athletes that have verbally committed to NCAA programs in the near future?

Because there are about 70 collegiate programs, tracking that is totally beyond my scope and what I do on this blog. But thankfully, College Gym Fans exists. They track all verbal and official commits, scholarships, transfers, and retirements on their news page and keep a running list of commits by incoming year on their commits page, where they currently have info for the next four seasons (yes, quite a few girls who will first compete in 2020 have already verbally committed). Because I don’t have time to track all of this myself, I rely on this site almost daily during the NCAA season.

How does the U.S. national team work in terms of money? Do the gymnasts get paid? I know countries like Russia have salaries for national gymnasts, but in the U.S. everyone trains at private clubs. How does this work?

There are stipends for all athletes named to the national team at nationals each year, with about $2000 per month allotted to those who make the team. This is evaluated throughout the year, so if someone doesn’t make the national team in the summer but then shows progress and that she deserves to make the team at camp in November, the elite committee will vote on whether to fund her and on how much she should get per month. When they do bulk additions to the team in the spring (usually when naming the Jesolo team), they generally give partial funding to those who are added on. For example, the six girls who got added to the team for Gymnix and Jesolo this year all got stipends of $500 per month.

We sometimes see NCAA gymnasts doing hands-free beam routines but have we ever seen something like this on floor? You’d need some awesome front tumbling and could make up the difference with dance elements. Is this possible?

I don’t think I’ve seen a truly hands-free floor routine, but I do know of gymnasts who have had elbow or wrist injuries who just did back handsprings into their tumbling, eliminating the roundoff to take that pressure off of their hands…so if they had one or two back tumbling passes in routines, they’d only need to make contact with the floor once or twice. You could probably do something like a bunch of punch passes to make it hands-free…a punch double front, punch Rudi to layout stepout so you can get that back tumbling requirement in, and then a punch front double full to front full or something. It wouldn’t be a super difficult routine but you can still get enough done with it.

Why do people think MyKayla Skinner would easily make the U.S. team using the changes coming to gymnastics for the next quad?

It’s because the next quad will allow for up to two individual gymnasts in addition to those named to the four-person team. MyKayla Skinner might not make the most sense in a team situation given the depth, but she currently has the greatest combination of difficulty in the world on vault with her Amanar and Cheng, and if she did make this summer’s team, she’d have a major shot at a vault medal. Like Alicia Sacramone in 2012, the U.S. will be leaving a potential event medalist behind because there’s no room for her on a five-person team, but in 2020, girls in MyKayla and Alicia’s shoes will have the ability to go to the Olympics without needing to fit the team puzzle. If this was 2020, you could send a team of the strongest gymnasts who make the most sense for the team, and then you could also send MyKayla to pick up a vault medal on the side.

Do you think Lisa Top would’ve been a top contender for the Dutch Olympic team if she hadn’t torn her PCL and injured her meniscus earlier this month? Is it likely she’ll return for 2020?

She definitely would have been high up there in the mix…not one of the very top competitors coming in essentially as a lock, but absolutely with a big shot at earning a spot to help them out on vault and floor, especially since Noël van Klaveren never got back to her prime and ended up withdrawing from contention. Now that some gymnasts have upgraded and have been doing well – like Tisha Volleman getting a DTY and Mara Titarsolej getting big scores internationally on floor – she would’ve had some competition, but she was easily in the top six or seven for their five-person team, and after watching this weekend’s competition and seeing good vault work and good floor work but not one athlete with both, I think Lisa’s talents are sorely missed. After contributing so much on so many major teams this quad, her injury is so devastating and unfortunate…I can’t imagine getting that close and then missing out.

If Aly Raisman were to make the Olympic team, do you think she would be a beam/floor specialist?

I think she will still be in the mix as an all-arounder. It would just depend on who else is named to the team. Like at worlds last year, it turned out that Maggie Nichols would have been the better choice to do the all-around in prelims, but it was a tough decision and Martha Karolyi ultimately went with Aly for several reasons. That same thing could happen this summer, especially if the options for the all-around competition in prelims are all on the same page (like, Aly alongside Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez, and Maggie Nichols…all fabulous all-arounders who can reach 59+ but two would have to be used on only a couple of events apiece if this was the team). But if the team has more deeply defined specialists (like Aly with Simone, Gabby, Madison Kocian for bars and beam, and MyKayla Skinner for vault and floor), Aly would certainly make sense as an all-arounder. It’ll all depend on how they choose to format the team. Right now it’s looking like Aly, Simone, Gabby, Laurie, and Madison so with Simone obviously going in, it’s going to be difficult to choose between Gabby, Laurie, and Aly for the next three spots, but I honestly think Aly looks the best right now and if she holds onto that through trials, she’ll go up in prelims on all four.

Why do newer elites go to elite qualifiers multiple years in a row? Is it required or do they want more experience?

Elites who aren’t pre-qualified to the American Classic or the U.S. Classic have to qualify to those meets in order to qualify to compete at nationals. They don’t have to get their compulsory scores again – that’s a one-time thing – but the only way to get to the classics is to get the qualification scores at the previous year’s nationals, at the ranch, or at a national elite qualifier. If a gymnast at the junior level either didn’t make it to nationals in 2015 or only got a 50.0 both days there and didn’t attend any verifications at the ranch last fall or this spring, the only way she can get her 51.5 classics qualification score is at a national elite qualifier, even if she already qualified to elite the previous year. Some elites will go to national qualifiers for the experience…like Morgan Hurd qualified to this year’s classics based on her scores at last year’s nationals and was all set, but opted to go to a qualifier because she was injured most of the year and needed a way to test out upgrades and routines before going to classics.

If a gymnast fell during their choreography on floor, does it count as a fall? It’s not an element, but on the other hand, a beam fall would count even if it was choreo. In figure skating I’ve seen people fall on ending poses and not get deducted.

Yes, any fall is a fall, whether it’s on a real tumbling or dance element or whether you just happen to trip over your feet during your choreo and crash.

What is the criteria for which athletes are chosen to attend developmental camp?

I don’t believe there’s an official list of criteria (if there is I can’t find it online), but I do know if a coach believes they have a gymnast ready for elite-level competition, he or she can submit a video of the gymnast to the women’s national program requesting an invite to the developmental camp. Most who get invited to the developmental camps should be at or close to the skill level they’d need to be at in order to qualify to the Hopes or elite divisions, and verifications at developmental camps count as qualification meets for the American and U.S. Classic. I think generally you get a mix of kids who are ready to get to Hopes/elite that year, or who might still be a bit too young or not fully prepared but could get there in the next year or two.

Why do walk-ons contribute so much more at UCLA than at other top schools? At schools like LSU and OU, they have maybe one competing on each team, but fully half of UCLA’s lineups are walk-ons. Do they get more talented walk-ons or do they just have more spots to fill?

I think it’s basically because UCLA just happens to let in a ton of walk-ons compared to other schools who may only have one or two at any given time. UCLA gives out their full number of scholarships, but then they also usually have a ton of walk-ons as well, walk-ons who maybe could’ve been star performers at lower-level programs but chose to attend UCLA because it’s kind of an amazing school in terms of both academics and gymnastics (and I’m sure the location also doesn’t hurt). For the most part, their walk-ons tend to be contributors on one or two events, and since vault is a huge deficit overall for UCLA, that’s where you tend to see a bunch of walk-ons making up lineups.

They also seem to be dealing with more injuries than any other program at any given time, which is bizarre, but they have the walk-on talent to back them up, whereas most schools without a pool of walk-ons also training tend to struggle. Look at Stanford in comparison…they’ve been unable at times to field six-person lineups on some events because they just have no depth, so when someone is injured, there’s no one who can act as a replacement. But UCLA losing two or three scholarship athletes to injuries can just reach into the depths of their walk-on pool to bring in gymnasts who may not bring in 9.95s but who can still perform well enough to give the team a bit of a cushion.

Who was the first gymnast to connect two layout stepouts on beam? I thought it was Simona Pauca of Romania but someone claims that Kathy Johnson did this pass, possibly in the late 1970s. I haven’t been able to find any clips to confirm this.

In my research, I’ve found that it looks like Kathy Johnson first did a back walkover into two connected layout stepouts at U.S. nationals in 1981. I can’t find any video of this…it looks like the one video that did exist is no longer on YouTube. She mostly did a back walkover to single layout stepout in the videos I can find from that year, but from what I’ve read, she did successfully connect the two layout stepouts on one day at nationals in 1981, and then Simona Pauca went on to do it later on, competing it successfully at the Olympic Games in 1984.

Do you have any news about Elizabet Vasileva? Is she going to the test event? Her choreography was fantastic as a junior.

No Bulgarian gymnasts qualified to the test event from last year’s world championships, so she was unable to compete there this year.  She did compete on beam at the challenge cup held in Varna this past May, and while she had some pretty work there on dance elements, her basics are still kind of a mess, and she qualified in 18th out of 19 gymnasts, failing to make the final. She’s always working on gorgeous new skills, and the videos of these are lovely to watch, but unfortunately until she fixes her foundational elements, she’s not going to be very successful at the elite level.

If people can easily do 2.5 twists on floor and even Nastia Liukin could do a double front, why is it so much harder to do these skills on vault? Why is it harder to generate power/speed/rotation on vault?

Basically, on floor, you’re using the power generated from your legs when you launch into your tumbling whereas on vault, the power is generated from your shoulders/arms. Think about it like this…if you jump up into the air using your feet and leg muscles, you usually get a good amount of height and airtime. Now try that in handstand. Almost impossible, right? So when you tumble on floor, your momentum is pushing through your legs as you roundoff back handspring or punch front into the air, but when you vault, your momentum pushes through your arms, which generates so much less power, even with the speed generated from the run and the extra push off the springboard.

There’s also the fact that on vault, since you begin your flip off the table with your body upside down, you’re doing an extra half rotation in your flip in order to land on your feet. A layout on vault is actually a layout and a half, and a double front is actually two and a half flips…you’re hitting the table with your hands and have to complete a half rotation before you complete your layout or your front tucks or whatever it is you’re doing off the table.

While some tumbling looks similar to vaults (i.e. a 2.5 looks like an Amanar, a double front looks like a Produnova), it’s actually super different due to the reasons above, which is why you can see gymnasts easily doing triples and double layouts on floor when these skills don’t even exist on vault for women. Even a double back…that’s considered one of the easiest floor passes for elites, but no woman has ever competed a Yurchenko double back on vault and McKayla Maroney has said that the vault is so terrifying, you basically need the perfect combination of power, speed, and air awareness otherwise you would most likely die doing it.

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Article by Lauren Hopkins