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This week, Jessica and Spencer are joined by Craig Zappa from ENA in Paramus, the coach of Olivia Dunne, who is here to tell us all about Olivia’s progress and preparations for Jesolo, how that whole Jesolo-as-individuals thing came about, how he felt about the live stream of verification (total scores), and to join our discussion of all the major news of the week—while Jessica definitely oversells Olivia’s new floor routine and loses it about the cuteness of Cory the Gym Dog. 

MEET NEWS

• NCAA Conference Championships!
  • The Pac-12 and SEC Championships were…not great?
  • Crack or Correct: Was UCLA held up by the judges?
  • Beam perfection—Kiana Winston and Alyssa Baumann edition
  • Peng Peng Lee continues to make history (Six more years! Six more years! Peng 2024!)
  • The SEC Network Gymnerd dream feed (and what NBC could learn…)
• Conference Championships RAGE-O-METERS
  • Gun sound effects. Other sound effects exist, people. Jessica has suggestions
  • Always change the camera angle to the FRONT of the gymnast. #ButtCloseupsNever
  • Don’t just pick a hot woman in the stands and constantly show her over and over
  • Spencer pleads for basic addition skills on broadcasts because he cares more about math than artistry
    • Fun fact: He is the only one and is wrong
  • The season of highest-ever scores. Is it the judging? Or is the gymnastics just better than five year ago? Spencer and Craig disagree
• NCAA Regional draw
  • This is the last year we have to deal with byes! HOORAY!
  • We break down all the regionals and assess which ones are going to be crazy-hard (Minnesota! NC State! Alabama!)
  • Individual competitors we desperately need to qualify to nationals (Lane! Hislop! Chan! Mitchell!) for reasons including artistry and tattoos
• Birmingham World Cup
  • Revolving stage and live band! Entertainment PLUS opportunities for comedy? Yes please
  • MELNIKOVA HIT FOUR WHOLE EVENTS. IT’S A MIRACLE
  • Marz Frazier and her fist pump heard ’round the world
  • That British guy on the world feed broadcasts and the important history lesson he teaches all of us
• Doha World Cup
  • Craig discusses what the US approach to qualifying individual Olympic spots from world cups will be
  • HIGHLIGHT OF ALL TIME: Marina Ulyankina dancing a jig after Perebinosova hit bars
  • The North Korea contingent brings expressive floor (what???) and an absolutely terrifying vault
  • Chuso is ready to medal at worlds
  • Men’s gymnastics heartwarming moment of the week

GYMTERNET NEWS

• Olga Korbut credits herself with ending the Cold War (duh), and Aliya is being coached by her ex-boyfriend. Just Russia things. 
• Aly Raisman gave a talk in Minnesota and mentioned that Kerry Perry still hasn’t reached out to any survivors.
• International Gymnastics Camp wanted to require shorts or leggings during workouts in response to sexual abuse. UHHHHHHH…nope.
  • Related: Check out the Darkness to Light Flip the Switch campaign
• USAG Safe Sport has a new twitter account tweeting out suspensions and bans
• Williams Strampel, Nassar’s boss at MSU’s college of Osteopathy, has been arrested for committing abuse himself. “How did Nassar get away with it for so long?” asked no one anymore. This is how. 
• Amy Tinkler is out of Commonwealth Games with an ankle injury because all of England is broken. Louis Smith weighed in on the controversy over her potential replacement (Fellows? James?) because of course he did.
• The latest on the Dragulescu/Raducan drama that entirely encapsulates the current state of Romanian gymnastics

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RELATED EPISODES

• 296: Komova in Stuttgart, NCAA Crack, and the Ranch Incident
• 295: Elvire Teza and Cecile Canqueteau-Landi
• 294: American Cup 2018
• 293: EXCLUSIVE Inside Elite Verification
• 292: Winter Cup 2018 and FIG official statement on hosting World Championships in anti-gay country
• 291: Not a Good Look
• 290: Valeri Is Out

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