“Don’t recall.” -ICYMI, Margzetta Frazier just virtually Mariah’d Steve Penny, and it was glorious.

Comp news

The Koper Challenge Cup happened. Zsofia Kovacs fared very well, winning bars—by a point and a half—and beam. Ilaria Kaeslin of Switzerland took the floor title and beam silver, and Marina Nekrasova of Azerbaijan won vault.

On the men’s side, our son Rhys McClenaghan won pommels by a point and a half. Umit Samiloglu of Turkey won high bar, Frank Baines of Great Britain won parallel bars and took silver on high bar, Wai Hung Shek of Hong Kong won vault, Nikita Simonov of Azerbaijan took the rings title, and Tomas Gonzalez of Chile won floor. Milad Karimi of Kazakhstan took two silvers, on floor and parallel bars. Results.

Robot news. Apparently athletes at junior worlds will need to submit to being scanned for the purposes of robot judging.

Nationals. So many nationals happened in the past two weeks, with champions crowned in Canada, Australia, Belgium, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Germany, and Norway. *deep breath* Overwhelmed? Us too, but we recapped them all.

Star status

Upgrades. Simone Biles dropped a bomb on us on Tuesday, posting a video of her doing a Biles into a layout (a connection Aimee Boorman says she could do in 2014). Just as my heart rate was returning to normal she also showed us her triple double (a trouble, if you will), which we realized she also could probably do from a 2014 tweet. Aimee said she also once did a double on beam, like, on the actual beam. In short, it’s been a real whirlwind.

In non-Simone upgrade news, Laney Madsen showed us German giants as her shoulders screamed bloody murder, and we saw more from Biles gym-mate Sydney Raze and junior elite Kailin Chio, who showed us her 3.5.

Injuries. Aliya Mustafina is out of the European Games due to an ankle injury.

Canada’s Zoe Allaire-Bourgie is out for the season, and Tarik Soto of Costa Rica announced that he tore his Achilles and therefore won’t be at Pan Ams. Get well soon, all.

Retirements. Nica Ivanus of Romania might be retired, according to my favorite source, Rumors.

MSU news

• Former Michigan State University dean and Larry Nassar’s former boss William Strampel’s trial began on Thursday. Strampel is facing charges of sexual misconduct while in office.
• Dr. Samuel Stanley, Jr. was named MSU’s new president on Tuesday.
• Michigan’s Attorney General is still trying to set up an interview with former MSU president John Engler to discuss how the uni reacted to the Nassar scandal.

Required reading

• Child abusers groom victims and their families. That’s why this new Olympic abuse prevention policy is so flawed (NBC News)
• Larry Nassar’s digital ghosts (The Cut)

NCAA corner

LSU had an idea. LSU proposed increasing the number of scholarships available to SEC gymnasts from 12 to 14, but it was shot down. In other LSU news, Jay Clark will become the new co-head coach with D-D Breaux, because that worked so well with Michael and Jim.

Hiring and firing. Dom Palange is re-joining UCLA as an assistant coach.

Men have issues. The College Gymnastics Association proposed rule changes to help make men’s NCAA gym more popular on Friday. These included moving to a 10-point system. The changes aren’t popular with some, including Mark Williams, who disagrees with the 10 proposal and says other changes could help popularize the sport.

Sam Cerio got married. And she walked down the aisle.

Staying social

I have questions. Someone please explain this weird ass tattoo to me. Is it real? Was it drawn by a child? Was it Larisa-endorsed? All unclear.

God’s work, Part 2. Spencer examined which skills in the COP are named incorrectly or spelled incorrectly, because the manual by which we all judge gymnastics needs to look like it was written on the bus.

Leyva was on TV. Danell Leyva was on American Ninja Warrior, and he posted his run on Insta.

What’s my name again. An Instagram user posed a question that will stump gymnerds for generations to come.

Happy Pride. In our next edition of “never read the comments,” some people took issue with USAG’s pride post, and by some people, I mean the homophobes that are apparently still among us in 2019.

Last words

Looks like MIT put a pause on closing the gymnastics gym thanks to all the outrage. Stay angry, my friends.

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