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EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS (1:54)

Gymnastics journalist and (now) broadcaster extraordinaire Blythe Lawrence joins us to talk all about the European Championship!

• WOMEN
  • MELANIE DE JESUS DOS SANTOS – she is the official queen of Europe, and the happiest person about it is Coline Devillard in the stands
  • Alice Kinsella’s rollercoaster meet, where no British women fell on beam
  • Maria Paseka’s Cheng. We have a necessary emergency therapy session about it. 
  • The rise of the new Italian seniors, Ukraine, and Belarus (!) 
  • Just talking about Eythora for a long time because WE NEED TO
• MEN
  • Russian dominance and Nagornyy’s dethroning of Dalaloyan
  • Dalaloyan almost fell on a man wipe in the FX final. You know, the important stuff
  • MARIOS succeeds with execution
  • Breaking down the insanity of that vault final, moment by moment
  • Updates on the Dom Cunningham injury and Oleg’s current status
• The REAL stories of Euros (47:14)
  • Luba got the scoop behind Nekrasova’s unitard from Baku
  • Spencer starts an entire sub-podcast about Nicola Bartolini’s tattoos, and it’s going to be long.
  • The usher kids and the couches and the hand holding—a deep dive
  • Lankin’s Wakanda Forever
  • Pauline Schäfer’s double turn save
  • What do we do about Alice D’Amato’s bars walking?
  • We tackle the issue of Luigi the Monkey, the bananas, and Melanie

NCAA NATIONALS PREVIEW (1:11:34)

• Remember: GYMCASTIC FLIPPING FOUR AFTER PARTY LIVE SHOW PRESENTED BY TUMBL TRAK, Saturday April 20th, 8:00 CT – everything you need to know, including what types of “cowboy dancing” Spencer will not be doing
• We announce the winners of the ticket giveaway
• Semifinal preview – Assessing every team’s chances to advance from the semifinal of death and the semifinal of life
• Team final preview – Jessica makes the argument for Oklahoma; Spencer makes the argument for UCLA
• Individuals preview – Who might actually win the titles, who has already won the titles in Jessica’s heart, and who should bring a bonkers upgrade just cuz
• (1:40:31) USAG Nationals – Lindenwood wins the team title, and there was a feelings thing that happened with UIC
• NAIGC Nationals is “like I opened a secret door into an underground group of people who get the purpose of gymnastics.”

GYMTERNET NEWS (1:14:06)

• L10 proposal to get more event qualifiers to nationals
• Mark Cook is retiring
• When the phone sex operator is the hero of the story
• Lou Anna Simon can’t recall
• Reminder: The deadline to Take Legal Action in USA Gymnastics Sexual Assault Cases is April 29, 2019

FURTHER READING

• National Championship Preview: Semifinal of Life
• European Championship – Event Finals Day 2
• National Championship Preview: Semifinal of Death
• European Championship – Event Finals Day 1
• European Championship – All-Around Finals
• European Championship – Women’s Qualification
• European Championships – Men’s Qualification
• Things Are Happening – April 9, 2019
• Onward to Fort Worth!

SUPPORT THE SHOW

• Join Club Gym Nerd here.
• Buy our awesome clothing and gifts here.

RELATED EPISODES

• 359: Sudden Death Regionals & Morgiboo Magic
• 358: Regionals Preview, Shire Brown, Olivera, Ruddock
• 357: It’s the Freakin’ Lighting!
• 356: Vallapalooza
• 355: Montreal Floor Part 2: Revenge of the Floor
• 354: American Cup and Jesolo Explosion

MORE WAYS TO LISTEN 

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LIVE SHOW TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

Remember: Tickets to our live show from NCAA nationals—the Flipping Four After Party presented by Tumbl Trak —are on sale now, and there are only 15 left! Get ’em while they exist.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: Plus, we’re giving away 2 pairs of tickets!

How to enter: Finish this sentence on Twitter or Instagram: “If I were in charge of the college code I would….” including #JudgeMeChellsie #GymCasticLive and tagging @MyGymJudge.

Deadline: Sunday, April 14th at midnight (PST).

Grand Prize: At the live show, the two ticket winners (or their selected representatives) will do a Memmel impression-off to win the grand prize—a My Gym Judge session with Chellsie Memmel. Compliments of Precision Choreography.

Attendees: Make sure to go straight to the event after the Flipping Four to put your name in for the amazing giveaways.

NCAA REGIONALS (9:20)

• It all went to plan…until it didn’t
• Oregon State 
  • A forensic investigation, with historical reference points, of the Florida beam disaster and elimination
  • Artistic gymnastics alert: Denver coach Linas Gaveika’s bars performance
  • Oregon State’s magical beam levitation, and How To Give Birth Under a Double Layout: The Regional
• LSU
  • Brace yourself: MyKayla Skinner fell on bars, ending a streak of 161 consecutive hit routines
  • Auburn’s amazing semifinal performance, the injury to Sam Cerio, and the delicate politics of covering gruesome injuries—plus a shoutout to Ella Douglas, who had to go on floor right after that
  • Lexy Ramler and Ivy Lu. Done. 
• Michigan
  • From the lack of television coverage, to this regional being behind a paywall, to the unreliable and nonexistent live scores, we have a serious access problem for regionals that needs to be fixed
  • Alabama is eliminated. This will be the first national championship without Alabama since 1982, the first year women existed
  • Kyla Ross got three more 10s, meanwhile Taylor Houchin got zero 10s, and we have a problem with that
  • Penn State got two individuals qualifiers to nationals and we’re taking all the credit. Sorry, gymnasts
• Georgia
  • Spencer calls for a judging intervention after this preposterous regional
  • Oklahoma recorded the highest road score in NCAA history, and Cal and Kentucky both set program records while being eliminated
  • Shoutout to Alma Kuc, Emi Watterson, and Cal’s best bars rotation ever en route to the strongest performance to be eliminated from any regional final
  • Marissa Oakley’s 10 was a thing of beauty and a joy forever, and Rachael Lukacs BROUGHT IT
  • Um. So. We need to talk about some leotards
• Gymnasts are ninjas — regionals edition
  • Erin Castle (Iowa) – Vault
  • Hannah Cohen (George Washington) – Bars
• What we still need to work on with this new regionals format, including meet timing and schedule, team distribution, and those stupid team prisons—now even stupider than ever!

TOKYO WORLD CUP (1:29:10)

• Morgan Hurd won the AA title by less than a tenth over Ellie Black, proving she is a sorceress on vault and beam, while also debuting her new floor routine. We interpret. 
• Ellie Black and Asuka Teramoto were on fire, though Teramoto’s true meet highlight had nothing to do with gymnastics
• Sam “Consistency” Mikulak hit an entire meet, including HB, to take the all-around title
• Plus, Giarnni Regini-Moran beat Kenzo on floor, why we’re excited to be concerned for Kenzo’s safety, and while we’re definitely not excited to be concerned for Bart’s safety

GYMTERNET NEWS (1:40:00)

• Former gymnastics coach in Brazil, Fernando de Carvalho Lopes, banned
• Everyone is pulling out of Euros, even Mustafina
• Gymnastics coach Jerry Reighard not fired from CMU, has two weeks to respond to investigation findings
• Shawn is having a baby
• FIG Parkour World Cup series set to begin
• Marz + TRUTH = yes.
• Flippin’ 5K Race & Festival (1:49:43)

FURTHER READING

• Onward to Fort Worth!
• Regionals Live Blog – Regional Finals
• Regionals Live Blog – Round 2
• Regionals Live Blog – Round 1

SUPPORT THE SHOW

• Join Club Gym Nerd here.
• Buy our awesome clothing and gifts here.

RELATED EPISODES

• 358: Regionals Preview, Shire Brown, Olivera, Ruddock
• 357: It’s the Freakin’ Lighting!
• 356: Vallapalooza
• 355: Montreal Floor Part 2: Revenge of the Floor
• 354: American Cup and Jesolo Explosion

MORE WAYS TO LISTEN 

LISTEN HERE

LIVE SHOW TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

Remember: Tickets to our live show from NCAA nationals—the Flipping Four After Party presented by Tumbl Trak —are on sale. In addition to gifts for every attendee, t-shirts (while supplies last), and door prizes from our store, you can win a My Gym Judge session with Chellsie Memmel. Compliments of Precision Choreography. Get ’em while they’re hot.

Regionals Preview (3:30)

NCAA Regional Championships begin this Thursday with the new play-in meets and end on Saturday, when the 8 teams advancing to nationals will be decided. Spencer gives the rundown of what to expect—while trying to fit in as many SYTYCD, Madonna, and Laura Linney references as possible. You know, gymnastics content.  Schedule here. 

Interviews Galore!

Sarah (of the Shire) Brown (8:12)
In her second season as head coach at Penn State, Sarah Brown joins us to talk about her time at GAGE, what it’s really like there, and what happens if you’re not turned out in the airport. Plus, the changes she tried to institute at Penn State after taking over at a program in turmoil, how transferring during her own college career informs her perspective on the athlete experience now, when we’re going to see a four-element beam series in the Penn State lineup (spoiler: it’s never), and whether Jessica is still allowed to call her Sarah of the Shire. 

Lieve Olivera (49:31)
Lieve Olivera was a Brevet judge from 1985 to 1996. She judged at world championships and world cups, has owned her own gym, was the media liaison at the 2000 Olympics, and has authored articles and given presentations on controversies in judging. So we obviously need to talk a lot about college gymnastics—the differences between college and international, how judges go about trying to reconcile their deductions with the need to rank routines, how best to improve college gymnastics judging, and the deductions she would have for an example routine. PLUS, behind the scenes stories about what happened in 2000 after the vault debacle and after Raducan was stripped of her medal.

Nick Ruddock (1:19:36)

Nick was a national coach for British Gymnastics who worked with everyone fro Ellie Downie to Amy Tinkler. He is now a consultant who has worked with 18 federations around the world, including Japan and the Netherlands (drink!). He emphasizes an athlete centered approach for longevity and high performance. Each year he shares his knowledge via GymCon which you’ve heard Jessica talk about one million times. Jessica asked him all of her burning technical, cultural and code questions.

FURTHER READING

• Regionals Preview Part 4: LSU Regional
• Regionals Preview Part 3: Michigan Regional
• Regionals Preview Part 2: Georgia Regional
• Regionals Preview Part 1: Dual-or-Die
• GIFCap: Superstars of Gymnastics

SUPPORT THE SHOW

• Join Club Gym Nerd here.
• Buy our awesome clothing and gifts here.

RELATED EPISODES

• 357: It’s the Freakin’ Lighting!
• 356: Vallapalooza
• 355: Montreal Floor Part 2: Revenge of the Floor
• 354: American Cup and Jesolo Explosion
• 353: The Carol Address and Olly Hogben
• 352: The Rachel Borden Appreciation Episode (and other things about gymnastics)
• 351: Rosé Then Slay
• 350: There Are No Rules in This House

MORE WAYS TO LISTEN