Crystelle Lake

A roundup of this week’s news, competitions, social media gossip, and more!

In the News

Iowa State’s letter to alum. Last week, we shared the news that Iowa State canceled the remainder of its season after being unable to safely field a full team of athletes. This week, alums received a letter from the athletic department stating that the “decision to suspend the season resulted from a series of complex internal conflicts between individual teammates, coaching staff members, and parents…[which] created unreconcilable differences that not only prevented our team from competing, but they also prevented team members from carrying on their daily activities, including practice.”

I won’t speculate about what these issues were, though of course the wider gymternet is gossiping and theorizing as per usual, and I’m sure some of these conversations have nuggets of truth. This Des Moines Register article dives further into the situation, reporting that athletes showed up expecting to practice on February 8 only to be told that their season was done, and that the program remains in limbo, though the school’s compliance department is planning on working with the Big 12 Conference to apply for season-of-competition waivers that could allow the gymnasts to retain this lost year of eligibility due to circumstances outside of their control.

Suspension for Ana Barbosu? The Romanian press is reporting that 2024 Olympic medalist and current Stanford star Ana Barbosu could face a potential suspension after missing three whereabouts drug tests over the period of one year. This is the same suspension U.S. athlete Yul Moldauer just emerged from, and could result in a two-year ban, though Stanford is covering the cost of her defense, and her attorney argues that the most recent violation that occurred in the United States are a result of the anti-doping officers looking for Barbosu at the wrong location.

Competition Updates

Roper, Vernon win Welsh national titles. Last weekend’s Welsh Championships saw the senior national all-around titles go to 20-year-old Abigail Roper and 19-year-old Elliot Vernon, while 20-year-old Ruby Stacey and 25-year-old Adam Tobin won gold in the senior open division. [Recap] [WAG Results] [MAG Results]

Five juniors qualify elite in Rochester. At the most recent U.S. elite qualifier, a total of five juniors earned their elite scores, including Chrysette Diggs and Madelyn Eagle of WOGA, Carla Fronc of Palmer’s Gymnastics, Jazzy Saravia of First State, and Eva Doherty of World Class. An additional eight athletes qualified to the Hopes levels. [Recap] [Results] [Elite Tracker]

Antibes dominant in Top 12 debut. In its first match of the 2026 Top 12 season, Antibes put up a massive 65 points to easily defeat Oullins, led by young standout Anthony Mansard. Also notching wins were Monaco, La Madeleine, and Kingersheim, and we got to see some world-class pommel horse work from international guest standouts Nariman Kurbanov, who scored a 14.5 for La Madeleine, and Mamikon Khachatryan, who scored a 14.733 for Kingersheim. [Results]

Nebraska, Michigan win big at home meets. The sixth week of NCAA MAG competition saw big scores from Nebraska and Michigan, both of which played host to a handful of lower-ranked programs. Nebraska’s season-best score of 319.650 boosted its ranking from fifth place to third, which also dropped Michigan to fourth place, though the Wolverines were without standout Fred Richard, which definitely limited their overall potential. [Results]

Upcoming Meets

Cottbus World Cup. The first world cup of the season kicks in Germany tomorrow with the first day of qualifications. There’s a ton of information on the event website, including the complete schedule, and we have a fully updated roster available as well. Only the apparatus finals will be streamed, both on worldgymnastics.tv and on the geo-blocked sporteurope.tv.

There unfortunately won’t be any live scores this year, as Sportlicht no longer exists, but DTB is usually quick to post PDFs on its website and social media so we’ll keep an eye out (hint, keep an eye on the event website’s downloads tab, which currently has the start lists up).

Winter Cup. The first major U.S. elite competition in the U.S. this season is the Winter Cup held in Louisville, Kentucky, where the men will compete on Saturday night and the women will have their turn on Sunday. The event website has you covered for rosters, start lists, and schedules, there will be free live streams on the USA Gymnastics YouTube channel, and live scores are available via ScoreCat. Oh, and we’ll be there live and in person! Yay.

Scottish Championships. The national championships for Scotland take place this weekend in Glasgow, and though it won’t be quite as star-studded as last week’s event in Wales was, there’s still going to be some fantastic standout competition, with reigning national champion Crystelle Lake a big draw.

The Aspire WAG group competes on Friday, while junior and senior WAG as well as all MAG athletes compete on Saturday, and apparatus finals will take place on Sunday. Athlete lists are currently available on Gymdata, which is also where you’ll find live scores.

Winter Classic National Qualifier. The next in a series of U.S. elite qualifiers will take place at the Winter Classic in Louisville right before the Winter Cup, so maybe we’ll see a few athletes get last-minute spots? The elite sessions aren’t listed on the overall schedule, but are supposed to take place on February 19–20, and you should be able to find scores via MeetScoresOnline.

Spanish League. The Spanish League is back this weekend with the first match in Palma de Mallorca! Lots of information is available via the federation’s website, and you can also find live scores for each division via the website. The first and second divisions will compete on February 21, while the third division competes on February 22.

WOGA Classic & Liukin Invitational. The elite sessions for both of these Frisco, Texas-based meets will happen on February 21, though with many U.S. athletes at the Winter Cup this weekend, I don’t think we’ll get anyone major here. Elite session scores are always a crapshoot for the WOGA meets, but your best bet is MeetScoresOnline, and if that doesn’t work, maybe we’ll get PDFs sometime within this calendar year.

NCAA Week 7. The seventh round of NCAA MAG competition takes place this weekend, and while most teams have a break with the Winter Cup the overwhelming focus for many of these athletes, we’ll still see Simpson host Army on February 21.

Russian Federal Championships. All of the Russian federal championships, which serve as qualifiers to nationals, take place throughout this week. I covered these once in 2021 and then never again because they are unhinged in many ways, but while I won’t be bringing every detail to life here, we always get to see glimpses of some key athletes, and I’ll share details about their performances.

Must-See Content

Artistry time for WCC. I love these clips of the WCC elite team training artistry! So many of the balancé arms and hands in the third slide have me spiraling, BUT they are trying and therefore no one should criticize them.

Article by Lauren Hopkins