About
The Best Gymnastics Podcast in the Galaxy
The podcast you’ve been waiting your whole life for! Inarguably, the best gymnastics podcast in the history of the universe. A weekly talk show with interviews, opinions, and analysis for fans by the wittiest, wisest journalists and analysts in the game. Check out GymCastic in the press.
The most influential voice in gymnastics
“Jessica O’Beirne, the most influential voice in gymnastics journalism.” Vanity Fair
“The most influential gymnastics coverage comes not from NBC broadcasts, but from the podcast GymCastic.” CNN
Reach is how many people see something. Influence is what changes because of it. Since 2012, the stories that moved gymnastics have started here and ended up everywhere else.
- Simone Biles’ first interview, anywhere Before any newspaper, network, or magazine, the greatest gymnast of all time sat down with GymCastic. Listen to Episode 33
- First independent podcast credentialed for an Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
- The only independent media in the world at the 2021 World Championships Kitakyushu, Japan, mid-pandemic. No other outlet outside Japan was in the building.
- New USA Gymnastics President Kyle Albrecht’s first interview March 2026. Before any other outlet, he sat down with GymCastic on athlete safety and the future of the sport. Listen
- New SafeSport CEO Benita Fitzgerald Mosley’s first interview with gymnastics media September 2026. Listen
- McKayla Maroney retired on GymCastic She announced it here and opened up about her career for the first time. CNN, Sports Illustrated, and the AP ran the story the next morning. Listen to Episode 187
The receipts 14 years of firsts, scoops, and stories that started here
Reporting that changed the sport
- Glasgow Worlds. Jessica asks the U.S. team a question no one else in the room would — and USA Gymnastics’ communications chief steps in to shut it down. The Columbia Journalism Review uses the moment to show what independent coverage of the sport looked like
- McKayla Maroney announces her retirement and speaks candidly about her career. Picked up by CNN, Sports Illustrated / AP
- Broke the news of the first lawsuit filed against Larry Nassar, then stayed on the story: at least 38 episodes on abuse in the sport by 2018, and counting. Michigan Radio’s Believed; Deadspin called GymCastic’s 2013 Nassar interview one of the best resources for understanding how he operated
- Vanessa Atler speaks about developing an eating disorder under Valeri Liukin. Picked up by People
- Luciana Alvarado’s Black Lives Matter tribute at the Tokyo Olympics. Picked up by Good Morning America, Elle, Today
- GymCastic reports the secret Japanese gym that helped Simone Biles through the twisties. Picked up by Newsweek
- Project K: a multi-year original investigation into the Romanian Secret Police files on Béla and Márta Károlyi — hundreds of documents retrieved, translated, and published for the first time. Project K
- Hezly Rivera on rebuilding after missing Worlds. Picked up by Olympics.com
Where the sport goes for its authority
- Featured in nearly every major gymnastics documentary of the past decade: Athlete A, Simone Biles Rising, Simone vs Herself, Golden, At the Heart of Gold.
- When the story is gymnastics, the BBC, NPR, and ESPN’s Outside the Lines call GymCastic. Jessica and Spencer also narrated The All Around for the Olympic Channel.
- ESPN’s 30 for 30 podcast Heavy Medals; Audible’s Twisted; speaker at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
- Two best-selling books co-written by GymCastic’s Steve Cooper: The Balance with Aimee Boorman, Simone Biles’ longtime coach, and Life Is Short, Don’t Wait to Dance with Valorie Kondos Field.
- Ranked in the top 25 of all sports podcasts during the Olympics.
Independent journalism, funded by fans
- Publishing every week since 2012 — 14 years and counting — funded by the members of Club Gym Nerd, not a network.
- On the ground at the World Championships, the U.S. Championships, and the NCAA Championships every year — with daily coverage and live shows.
- The Score Explorer, free to everyone, and the 2028 Roster Lab, built for Club members — data tools no other outlet has.
- The pandemic watch parties that kept the gymternet together in 2020 (Washington Post).
- Fantasy gymnastics — now covered by the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.
About The Hosts
Find out all about the hosts in Episode 100 here.
Jessica O’Beirne
Jessica O’Beirne‘s mission in life is to make gymnastics as popular as the NFL. No, seriously, she’s not kidding. She is the creator and producer of the show. Before GymCastic took over her life, she worked tirelessly to assure that gymnasts knew they could continue to do the sport throughout their lifetime for health, fitness and fun over at masters-gymnastics.com (featured here in the New York Times). She has written for International Gymnast magazine, the LA Times and Huffington Post. She has also been featured or contributed to nearly every major gymnastics documentary in the past decade, including "Simone Biles Rising," "Golden," "At the Heart of Gold," "Athlete A" and others. Follow her on BlueSky.
Spencer Barnes
Spencer Barnes has been a devoted fan of gymnastics ever since Svetlana Boguinskaya and Lilia Podkopayeva rescued him from the clutches of a sea monster and brought him to a beautiful island paradise, although that may have been a dream. He is firmly committed to shouting the virtues of NCAA gymnastics from all available rooftops, hills, and stepstools and believes that all floor routines should strive to communicate the sorrow of a nation through the medium of toe point. He can normally be found detailing bizarre commentator moments and obsessing over who deserved a 9.875 at his blog, The Balance Beam Situation, and on Twitter @TheBBSituation.
Steve Cooper
Coop, Fact Checker, Mr. OtotheBeirne, Scooper... is a journalist with over two decades of writing, reporting and editing experience that started at Entrepreneur and continued with Bloomberg, Forbes, The Huffington Post, BusinessWeek, Orange County Business Journal, TheStreet and many others. He is also our photographer, writes books, works on websites and does many other things. He has a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University. You can find more information at his website SocalJourno.com and follow him on BlueSky.
Disclaimer: Coop co-authored the best-selling books: "The Balance: My Years Coaching Simone Biles" (2025) with Aimee Boorman and also co-authored “Life is Short, Don’t Wait to Dance” (2018) with former UCLA Gymnastics head coach Valorie Kondos Field. And he's married to the founder of GymCastic.
Dr. Uncle Tim, Ph.D.
Dr. Uncle Tim, Ph.D. (yes, he has a real-life doctorate) is our historian and news aggregator. He speaks a lot of languages, can do a back tuck on beam, once gymnastics busked in front of the Collesium in Rome; and when he coached, survived many little kid farts. Now he researches and corrects the past at gymnastics-history.com. Uncle Tim was one of the four original GymCastic hosts along with Blythe Lawrence, Spanny Tampson and Jessica.
Dr. Kensley Behel, Ph.D.
Kensley is our men's gymnastics expert. Kensley became involved in men's collegiate gymnastics after emailing a coach to see if she could be a volunteer water girl for the Michigan Men's Team - they countered and offered her a paid position as the team's event manager. She has run the floor at the 2014 NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships and the 2015 BIG Women's Gymnastics Championships. As a freelance journalist, she has covered elite gymnastics in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Scotland, and Japan. Kensley earned her Ph.D. at the University of North Texas studying Performing Arts Health. Follow her coverage of men’s gymnastics at Neutral Deductions.
GymCastic
The best gymnastics podcast in the history of the universe. A weekly talk show with interviews, opinions and analysis for fans by the wittiest, wisest journalists and analysts in the game.
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