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This week’s episode has been commissioned by Brad, who commissioned this very special edition of GymCastic as a surprise gift for his girlfriend Tricia. We present…Shawn and Nastia: From Feud to Friendship. 

• All the makings of a classic rivalry—the preordained champion with OLYMPIC DNA LEGACY OMG, versus the little upstart from Iowa corn-fed-doo-dee-doo who just bounced along bouncily 
• The context of the new open-ended code and the BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE OF THE SPORT
• Who ultimately won that battle?
• The narrative of Nastia as “form” and Shawn as “power”—the aspects in which that holds up, and the aspects in which it definitely doesn’t. Enough time has passed that we can get real about some of these skills. 
• “Nastia won the 2008 all-around because the Olympic judges loved her international look.” We dive into that garbage barge and burn it from the inside. 
• The fan feud: Team Nastia or Team Shawn. You must pick a side.
• The culture war imposed on Shawn and Nastia. The “all-American girl next door” versus “the foreigner” and how that influenced THE FEUD. 
• And then Jessica officially pops off about the constant adjudication of whether prominent women are “best friends” or in a “catfight.” (Psychology Today)

FURTHER READING

• The Japan Problem
• Things Are Happening – June 7, 2019
• No Skill For You
• Live, Laugh, Nabieva

SUPPORT THE SHOW

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

RELATED EPISODES

• 365: 1988 Olympics Team Competition (Commissioned)
• 364: 80s Fight! (Commissioned)
• 344: Shushunova vs. Silivas 1988 (Commissioned)
• 342: A Quitter’s Try – The CNN Parkettes Documentary (Commissioned)
• 341: The Call Is Coming from Inside the House
• 340: USAG and The Case of the Missing Documents
• 327: 1993 NCAA Nationals (Commissioned)
• 325: Olympics of Difference Makers (Commissioned)
• 313: Best Floor Routines EVAH! (Commissioned)
• 312: 4th Is the New 1st (Commissioned)
• 309: Perfect Form – The O’Beirne Code (Commissioned)
• 308: 2004 Olympic All-Around Final (Commissioned)
• 306: Gymnastics Fails (Commissioned)
• 304: The GymCastic Olympics (Commissioned)
• 281: Myths, Legends, and Unexpected Moments PART 2 (Commissioned)
• 279: A Diva Is Magical: The Svetlana Khorkina Episode (Commissioned)
• 278: 2000 Sydney All-Around Final (Commissioned)
• 262: 1996 Olympic Event Finals (Commissioned)
• 258: The Fluff Cast (Commissioned)
• 256: 1996 Olympic All-Around Final (Commissioned)
• 255: 1996 Olympic Team Final (Commissioned)
• 252: Myths, Legends and Unexpected Moments in Gymnastics History (Commissioned)
• 228: Leotards (Commissioned)
• 225: 1992 Olympics Recap with Wendy Bruce (Commissioned)
• 185: 2008 Olympic All-Around Finals (Commissioned)

MORE WAYS TO LISTEN 

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GYMTERNET NEWS

• Simone’s upgrades! (EEEEEE)
• That Sarah Finnegan abortion broom internet scam
• Terin Humphrey was fired from USAG
• What exactly is the virtuous performance of a value part?
• NCAA coaching developments and rule proposals
• Aliya’s injury (NOOOOOOO)
  • Nabieva is back on national team (Spencer has a tribute here)
• Ashton Locklear retires
• A rousing game of “The British Call It What?” hosted by Kensley (56:56)

MEET NEWS (1:14:18)

• Canadian Nationals
  • The Ellie Black/Ana Padurariu rivalry delivers another classic
  • Brooklyn Moors tore her heart out for our sins
  • Shallon Olsen has never slept ever, apparently
• World Challenge Cups
  • Vault debacles—stopped runs and ad-board headbutts 
  • Rhys McClenaghan is back and recording huge PH scores
  • Tomas. Gonzalez. Spencer needs some smelling salts.
  • Trends in women’s floor composition for fans of dance elements
  • Goksu Uctas Sanli is everything we want in women’s gymnastics
  • Bars, er, um, didn’t go great
• Australian Nationals – updates on national champion Georgia Godwin, the state of Australia’s chances to make the Olympics, and Heath Thorpe

PLUS

MAN DRAMA! (1:51:18) Kensley updates us on the proposals (they’re just proposals, you guys) for drastic changes in men’s college gymnastics, the suspect claims being made about how wonderful they’re going to be, and the twitter fight that ensued. 

DEVO CAMP! (1:04:53) We are joined by Lauren Stevens of the Chalk Warrior who attended the most recent developmental camp at Flip Fest and is here to give us all the inside scoop, what she was surprised by, and encouraging news about tonal and cultural changes in the USAG system.

FURTHER READING

• Koper World Challenge Cup
• Things Are Happening – May 31, 2019
• Canadian and Australian Nationals
• That’s Not My Name

SUPPORT THE SHOW

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

RELATED EPISODES

• 365: 1988 Olympics Team Competition (Commissioned)
• 364: 80s Fight! (Commissioned)
• 363: Five Is the New Four (…Is the New Five)
• 362: Morgan Hurd & Heath Thorpe
• 361: 2019 NCAA Nationals
• 360: European Championships & NCAAs Preview

MORE WAYS TO LISTEN 

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The hair Olympics! And also gymnastics. But mostly hair! This week, we have a commissioned episode from Club Gym Nerd member Billy, who asked for an episode all about the team competition at the 1988 Olympics saying, “have fun with all the 80s styles and music.” We don’t need to be told twice. 

• Setting the scene
  • Check out last week’s 80s FIGHT episode for all the Romanian/Soviet lead-up drama to the 1988 Olympics
  • Updates on the age falsification discussion from last week, featuring Soviets who were underage too
  • Jessica finds an excuse to talk about, Chernobyl, another HBO show she’s obsessed with
  • Here is a video of then-FIG President Yuri Titov lying about Elena Mukhina being paralyzed (Thank you, Boris for sending us this video)
• Compulsories – perfection and politics
  • We gush about the wonders of compulsories and pick out the skills from the 1988 compulsory routines that we would put in our dream 2019 compulsories
  • Because of being an insufferable form queen, Spencer freaks out about people’s leg positions and fake 10s for gymnasts from famous countries
  • A fluff piece about acid wash jorts. Also Chelle Stack and Bela and weight and EVERYTHING’S FINE HERE. 
• The 0.5 deduction for the US team
  • What was the actual rule? Was the deduction for the US an appropriate reading of that rule? 
  • How did the Bela/Ellen Berger feud play into the deduction?
  • Whose fault was it really? (Spoiler: it’s Bela’s) 
• Team optionals
  • Do the Bulgarians have the biggest gripe?
  • A mild divorce over whether a tucked tkatchev would be hard
  • EAST GERMANY WAS OVERSCORED
  • Mullets. A deep controversy about the proper physics of a mullet.
  • The imperfect 10. Is it acceptable or not?
  • Which floor routine best encapsulates the 1980s—Silivas or Kersten? 
  • Interpreting Romania’s intended wiggles on beam, here and here
  • East German leos – pleather or rubber or substance not of this earth?
  • The Strazheva Moment
  • Why didn’t Silivas save the double double for finals?
  • Spencer says something very controversial about the US beam rotation
  • The Soviet Cowboy: An Analysis 
  • Creepy things that happened after the competition

FURTHER READING

• Osijek World Challenge Cup
• Things Are Happening – May 24, 2019
• The Kims
• Zhaoqing World Challenge Cup

SUPPORT THE SHOW

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

RELATED EPISODES

• 364: 80s Fight! (Commissioned)
• 344: Shushunova vs. Silivas 1988 (Commissioned)
• 342: A Quitter’s Try – The CNN Parkettes Documentary (Commissioned)
• 341: The Call Is Coming from Inside the House
• 340: USAG and The Case of the Missing Documents
• 327: 1993 NCAA Nationals (Commissioned)
• 325: Olympics of Difference Makers (Commissioned)
• 313: Best Floor Routines EVAH! (Commissioned)
• 312: 4th Is the New 1st (Commissioned)
• 309: Perfect Form – The O’Beirne Code (Commissioned)
• 308: 2004 Olympic All-Around Final (Commissioned)
• 306: Gymnastics Fails (Commissioned)
• 304: The GymCastic Olympics (Commissioned)
• 281: Myths, Legends, and Unexpected Moments PART 2 (Commissioned)
• 279: A Diva Is Magical: The Svetlana Khorkina Episode (Commissioned)
• 278: 2000 Sydney All-Around Final (Commissioned)
• 262: 1996 Olympic Event Finals (Commissioned)
• 258: The Fluff Cast (Commissioned)
• 256: 1996 Olympic All-Around Final (Commissioned)
• 255: 1996 Olympic Team Final (Commissioned)
• 252: Myths, Legends and Unexpected Moments in Gymnastics History (Commissioned)
• 228: Leotards (Commissioned)
• 225: 1992 Olympics Recap with Wendy Bruce (Commissioned)
• 185: 2008 Olympic All-Around Finals (Commissioned)

MORE WAYS TO LISTEN 

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The greatest rivalries of the 1980s! This week, we have a commissioned episode from Club Gym Nerd member Kimo, who asked for an episode all about the 1980s rivalries between the Romanians and the Soviets, both team and individually. We are oh so happy to oblige!

Setting the scene

• A history of Soviet dominance
• Romania’s 1976 emergence
• The 1977 Europeans Romanian WALKOUT!
• The first great Romanian/Soviet rivalry—Nadia vs. Nellie and how it may or may not have influenced the future of gymnastics
• Romania wins in 1979, the “Nadia Infected Wrist” worlds
  • The true story of Nadia’s fake injury and government control

The Rivalry

• The 1980 Olympics of crazy judging
  • Nadia vs. Davydova and the case of the 30-minute delay
  • Nadia vs. Nellie and the case of the “computer malfunction”
  • Mukhina’s paralysis and the race for innovative difficulty
• 1981 Worlds
  • The silliest scores of 1981 (oh, it’s 9.800 for this)
  • The case of the Szabo/Agache impersonation of 1981
  • Romania ends up 4th. That’s right 4th.
• 1983 Worlds
  • Innovation from an all-star Soviet team—YURCHENKO vaults, the SHISHOVA
  • Just fangirling about Mostepanova for a while
  • More fun with bonkers scoring
• 1984 boycott gives us an opportunity to talk about China
• 1985 Worlds
  • Soviet Union casually adds Omelianchik and Shushunova to its already stellar 1983 team
  • The Soviets were so deep that Shushunova placed FIFTH on her own team in qualification
  • The evolution of Romanian floor to be less “chicken dance” and whether it contributed to what happened next
• 1987 and THE TIDE TURNS
  • Silivas wins the European AA title in Moscow, and the Soviets (gasp) fall
  • Romania gets its first world team title in 8 years
  • How the addition of Aurelia Dobre changed the game for Romania
  • Pro-Soviet bias in skill naming
  • Dobre vs. Shushunova vs. Silivas vs. Baitova vs. Omelianchik. This was no two-way rivalry
  • The 1988 Olympics and how timing is everything

FURTHER READING

• Firsts, Named Skills, and Innovators in Women’s Artistic Gymnastics
• Zhaoqing World Challenge Cup
• 2019 JO Nationals
• 2019 Spring/Summer Schedule

SUPPORT THE SHOW

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

RELATED EPISODES

• 344: Shushunova vs. Silivas 1988 (Commissioned)
• 342: A Quitter’s Try – The CNN Parkettes Documentary (Commissioned)
• 341: The Call Is Coming from Inside the House
• 340: USAG and The Case of the Missing Documents
• 327: 1993 NCAA Nationals (Commissioned)
• 325: Olympics of Difference Makers (Commissioned)
• 313: Best Floor Routines EVAH! (Commissioned)
• 312: 4th Is the New 1st (Commissioned)
• 309: Perfect Form – The O’Beirne Code (Commissioned)
• 308: 2004 Olympic All-Around Final (Commissioned)
• 306: Gymnastics Fails (Commissioned)
• 304: The GymCastic Olympics (Commissioned)
• 281: Myths, Legends, and Unexpected Moments PART 2 (Commissioned)
• 279: A Diva Is Magical: The Svetlana Khorkina Episode (Commissioned)
• 278: 2000 Sydney All-Around Final (Commissioned)
• 262: 1996 Olympic Event Finals (Commissioned)
• 258: The Fluff Cast (Commissioned)
• 256: 1996 Olympic All-Around Final (Commissioned)
• 255: 1996 Olympic Team Final (Commissioned)
• 252: Myths, Legends and Unexpected Moments in Gymnastics History (Commissioned)
• 228: Leotards (Commissioned)
• 225: 1992 Olympics Recap with Wendy Bruce (Commissioned)
• 185: 2008 Olympic All-Around Finals (Commissioned)

MORE WAYS TO LISTEN 

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ALL GYMTERNET NEWS, ALL THE TIME

• Dumpster fire news 
  • It has been yet another terrible month for USAG (a theme???)
  • The Li Li Today interview disaster
  • The further mess of the botched hiring of Edward Nyman
    • Whose side are we on here? And is it no one’s? (It’s no one’s)
    • A deep dive into the unprofessional incompetence of everyone ever
  • Seriously Terin? The Terin Humphrey Facebook nonsense.
  • The disastrous, unacceptable debacle that was Mary Lou’s latest TV appearance
• NCAA Coaching Musical Chairs (41:20)
  • Jordyn Wieber is the new head coach at Arkansas
    • What do we think of this move? Is 23 too young to be a head coach? And most importantly, should Chris Brooks be her assistant?
  • Chris Waller has been named head coach at UCLA
    • What does a successful Chris Waller tenure look like? We discuss both results and bras. Guess who brought up which topic.
  • More from the NCAA coaching carousel, including all the changes at Utah
• Olympic and World Championship news  (55:30)
  • Olympic teams are returning to FIVE (count ’em five) members in 2024. We have extensive thoughts and further proposals, some of them radical
  • World championships will cap the number of competitors and introduce a qualification process starting in 2022.
  • There are really strict leotard rules for team and individual competitors in 2020 for some reason.
  • DRAH-MAAAAAA in the awarding of 2023 worlds. It involves taking people to court over a lack of numerical specificity in deadlines. Spencer is in heaven.
  • Important robot judging news.
• PLUS
  • At the Heart of Gold is now available on HBO. Jessica tells us about the premiere, and we discuss overall thoughts and play “what we’ve learned since.”
  • Olympic. Channel. Svetlana. Khorkina. Documentary.
  • New recruiting rules in NCAA (finally!)
  • Diego Hypolito comes out
  • Jordan Schwikert, Alyssa Baumann, and Tasha Schwikert have testified in TX about a MeToo bill
  • Simone does her second SI Swimsuit Shoot, and Jessica explains to Spencer why it actually matters

• Chinese Nationals!!! (1:36:32)
  • Tingting is the national AA champion and UB champion—and is also brilliantly Netherlands-ing the crap out of floor
  • The craziness of event finals, where Fan Yilin missed on bars, everybody fell on beam, and Zhang Jin had the most sad-larious floor leap miss-save in history.
  • SHANG CHUNSONG won the floor title, but the true winner was her shirt
  • World tumbling champion Jia Fangfang has made huge strides on floor
  • We have three new perfect junior obsessions: Ou Yushan, Luo Rui, and Guan Chenchen, who is a silly little goose who is dancing constantly
  • Plus, the most perfect PBars routine ever.

FURTHER READING

• The Only Gymnast That Mattered: The Svetlana Khorkina Story
• Things Are Happening – May 9, 2019
• Perfect Chinese Beamers Who Never Saw the Light of Day
• Gymnastics GIFs for All Occasions: Part 2

SUPPORT THE SHOW

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

RELATED EPISODES

• 362: Morgan Hurd & Heath Thorpe
• 361: 2019 NCAA Nationals
• 360: European Championships & NCAAs Preview
• 359: Sudden Death Regionals & Morgiboo Magic
• 358: Regionals Preview, Shire Brown, Olivera, Ruddock

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MORGAN AND HEATH!

This week, Jessica and Spencer chat with gymnastics royalty—2017 world all-around champion Morgan Hurd and 2018 Australian national floor champion and Worlds squad member Heath Thorpe—about being the undisputed monarchs of the gymternet and much more, including

• How they became friends and whether they’re accepting applications for new members
• Behind the scenes stories from 2018 worlds
• Which apparatuses are the stupidest and least stupidedest
• Forcing Morgan to try to come up with the names of MAG skills
• Heath’s gymnastics idols, and his decision to be out publicly on the internet
• Embarrassing fan tales about the time Morgan met Aliya Mustafina
• The story behind Morgan’s new floor routine, and if there are any other secret upgrades she can reveal to us
• The deal with Morgan’s crazy elbow and her most recent surgery
• The Morgiboo Book Club – what are we reading this month?
• Favorite movie genres, escape rooms, how 3 out of 4 of us don’t care about Game of Thrones, and all kinds of nonsense

What’s next? You can catch Heath competing at the Australian National Championships, May 24-26 in Melbourne!

FURTHER READING

• Gymnastics GIFs for All Occasions: Part 2
• Things Are Happening – May 3, 2019
• Drug Murder at Le Club Gymnastics
• State of the National Teams Address
• Things Are Happening – April 26, 2019

SUPPORT THE SHOW

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

RELATED EPISODES

• 361: 2019 NCAA Nationals
• 360: European Championships & NCAAs Preview
• 359: Sudden Death Regionals & Morgiboo Magic
• 358: Regionals Preview, Shire Brown, Olivera, Ruddock
• 357: It’s the Freakin’ Lighting!
• 356: Vallapalooza
• 284: Morgan Hurd

MORE WAYS TO LISTEN 

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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

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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 

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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. 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