The No. 1 Gymnastics Podcast in the Galaxy

Episode 50: 2013 Antwerp World Championship Preview

Note to Android users – please try the Stitcher app for Android here or download the show here.

worldsschedule
How to watch the 2013 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships.

It’s our birthday show! Last week, we turned one-year-old. To celebrate we hear from you. This week, we chat about FIG president, Bruno Grandi‘s latest suggestion to reduce team size to four and his assertion that teen athletes are the “great drama” of the sport, we pick our favorite routines from the Osijek Cup where Epke Zonderland tried to break the judge’s pencils, Sanne Wevers manipulated the code into utter perfection, and Alberto Busnari rocked pommels at age 34.  Spanny reacts to the Junior International in Japan where Bailie Key, Catherine Lyons and Sae Miyagawa set the stage for Rio, Al Fong‘s (unsolicited?) response to Jess’s question about the timing of team selection, and delivers the Gabby Douglas movie update and poses the question, will Travis Wall finally choreograph Gabby’s floor routine, now that he has a direct connection to Miss Douglas? USAG’s Scott Bregman stops by to give us the scoop on live World’s coverage. Then it’s time for our World’s preview; our in-depth thoughts on the US World Team, the British team selection drama, injury updates, routines we are most excited for and those we least want to see, who the biggest surprise will be and our top strategy theories – will McKayla Maroney compete all-around?! Finally, we answer the age old question, what is the difference between code-whoring and genius routine construction.

Check back all week for our special World Championship mini-episodes and make sure to follow Blythe during World’s. She will be there in person doing her usual fabulous quick hits and interviews: Gymnastics Examiner, Facebook, Twitter.

Related
Live coverage USAGymWorlds.com
Our Simone Biles interview
Our Kyla Ross interview
Our Jake Dalton interview
Our Sam Mikulak interview
Our Elizabeth Price interview
Uncle Tim’s article Fact Checking Bruno Grandi: Is 18 Old?
Women’s World Rankings as of September 23, 2013
Men’s World Rankings as of September 23, 2013

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hama
hama
10 years ago

love your podcasts, but they should be a little bit louder. i hardy hear them

Ivan
Ivan
10 years ago
Reply to  GymCasticCrew

I am seconding this concern as well. I’ve posted a comment before about the huge difference between everyone’s gain in the podcast. If you guys need help with audio mixing, I can help you out (out of love of course =D). I had to turn my car’s stereo volume to the max to listen to this podcast. We just need better sound mixing on the feed. Email me!

Ivan

PoisonedPizza
PoisonedPizza
10 years ago

So, the podcast is not downloadable anymore?
I used to upload it into my mp3 player, but now I can’t. 🙁

ty
ty
10 years ago
Reply to  PoisonedPizza

I was just about to say the same thing. I usually download it on my tablet so I can listen to it while waiting for the kids to get out of school. Now I need an internet connection to listen. Great episode though. Also whenever they make the rules for gymnastics do they ever take into consideration what the current gymnasts have to think. Do they ever get a say in the sport they are actually competing in. As opposed to people who haven’t in a long time, or never competed.

PoisonedPizza
PoisonedPizza
10 years ago
Reply to  GymCasticCrew

I only listen to it when I’m running or at the gym and I don’t have a fancy phone.
Can’t you guys make it downloadable?

Cordelia Price
Cordelia Price
10 years ago

My opinion on World’s in response to comments on Gymcastic: Mckayla has been training AA her whole career just as Kyla has. At Olympics they were used as specialists because they were not the strongest AA at the time. Is Mckayla one of the strongest AAs now and thus will she be used that way? It all depends on Martha’s view of them based on camp (where they had to verify their routines before leaving for Amsterdam) and close to the competition in training (which we don’t see). What we have seen from training videos of Mckayla on bars and beam has not been pretty. If Brenna hits her UB & FX (and scores what she usually does on VT and BB) Brenna scores higher than 59. If Mckayla hits her BB & UB and scores what she usually does on VT & FX she can score 60. The problem is so far Mckayla has been less likely to hit her BB &UB than Brenna has to hit her FX & UB. If Brenna is hitting bars she will be the 3rd person put up on bars in qualifications because she can score higher than Simone and has a better chance of making bar final than Simone or Mckayla. The only consistent bar workers this year have been Kyla, Aliya, & the Chinese (Shang,Jinnan,Huidan) which makes it possible for a gymnast scoring 15 (which Brenna can do) to make final. Other good bar workers have been inconsistent including the British (Harrold,Downie) and the Germans (Scheder,Seitz). Mckayla could be used in AA if Simone or Kyla weren’t hitting. Also, after 24 hrs before competition starts non-traveling alternate cannot be used so any substitutions will happen among the 4 world team members. Mckayla can score higher than Brenna on beam if she can stay on the beam but of the 3 times I’ve seen her so far she has come off the beam. If that happens she does not score higher than Brenna because Brenna is really good in 3 of the 4 events. In summary, I think Simone and Kyla will still do AA, Brenna will do bars, Mckayla will do VT & FX. If Mckayla can show Marta she can stay on beam, she will do beam Otherwise it will be Brenna. Either way neither Mckayla nor Brenna would come close to making a beam final. The best we could hope for from qualifications is the following to make finals: AA Simone and Kyla VT Mckayla and Simone, UB Kyla and Brenna, BB Kyla and Simone, FX Simone and McKayla

Christian
Christian
10 years ago

Sanne is upgrading?!??! Oh oh please let this happen!!

dp
dp
10 years ago

Something worth noting wrt specialists though is that a team with 3 or 4 two-or three-event specialists (as might be possible with a six-member team) is going to be doing more exciting gymnastics than a four member team comprised entirely of all-arounders (which will pretty much be necessary unless the intention is to make quals 3 up 3 count as well as finals). BRUNO has mentioned that if a team also has a specialist they would like to qualify, five athletes from a given country could still attend the Olympics, but this limits the number of specialists to one when in many cases teams have many specialists that could have medal chances (for example, last year when we left at least three gymnasts that could have had event medals at home in Li. Sacramone and Finnegan). I really think the sport ought to be more about showing off the absolute best and if the FIG wants to increase diversity, they should focus on development and making more training resources and opportunities available to gymnasts in non-big-4 countries rather than essentially communicating to the Big 4 countries that training more than a very small number of outstanding gymnasts isn’t worth their time as these gymnasts won’t have the opportunity to be rewarded.

Why on earth would we choose to define artistry based on what people like? A truly artistic routine isn’t necessarily going to have a huge amount of mass appeal, but it will be unique, irreplacable and *captivating*. (Think Boginskaya.) I also kind of feel like it’s kind of difficult to find ways to bring “artistry” as it’s defined for WAG into half the events (vault and bars) and they would do well to adopt a definition similar to that of MAG (attention to detail in execution) and then deduct like crazy for it.

I agree that the US needs to compete more – honestly if Marta sent every gymnast who could be successful to 2 or 3 World Cups or equivalent-level junior meets (not even including the year’s World or Olympic team) the US would be everywhere, all the time and it would be lovely.

That thing with Gabby was supposedly solely by 2012 Nats results but yeah that sounds off to me as well considering she finished 2nd and won day 1. 2011 Nats vs. Worlds makes loads more sense.

How much does the gymternet need to pay USAG/USN to stop regiolocking their livestreams? Is this an a la carte cable law thing?

Re. Maroney + AA: Are you people prophets or…

Well so far the Americans do seem to be best-casing so…

Oleggggggggggggggggggggggggg! Please hit in vault finals!

“The girl from Egypt” has a name and it’s Fadwa Mahmoud. I think the main problem with these two, Peña especially, is that they don’t block off the right place on the table or with good technique. Obviously they’ve got pretty quick rotation so if they could get the height that comes with a quality block they could probably do the vault… But they don’t.

Happy birthday! I’ve loved every interview I’ve listened to! Hopefully y’all will continue to give us a great show for years to come. Have you had Coach Rick on the show yet? If not, I think he would be a good guest to try and schedule.

Where would I recognize Allison Taylor from besides this show’s ads? Her voice just sounds really familiar to me.

dp
dp
10 years ago
Reply to  dp

To clarify, that MAG artistry definition would be for vault and bars only- the events with more of a performance element would maintain the current performance-oriented definition of artistry.

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