A. This weekend

We’ll start with the fun stuff—competitions. The Pan American Championships will run from Friday to Sunday, with a preview of the women’s competition and full schedule here. This will be the last official competition opportunity for the large majority of the teams until worlds—and a critical case-making meet for some of the borderline American, Brazilian, and Canadian contenders. 

Germany will hold an internal test on Saturday to begin making its own worlds team decisions, the women hoping to find a solution to…whatever that was at Euros. That solution is probably named Elisabeth Seitz. She’ll return to competition here, none too soon for Germany’s sake, performing alongside Schäfer, Bui, Voss, and the usual suspects. Sophie Scheder is not competing.

Women are at 1pm local, the men at 4:30pm local. If you are avoiding-geoblocking savvy, there will be a live stream.

The following weekend, we’ll get back into the World Challenge Cups swing, with Szombathely, followed by Paris. Both Downies are on the list for Paris. The entire nation of Great Britain breathes a sigh of relief.

B. The awful stuff

The latest news from the land of crime—Erika Davis filed suit against That Guy saying that he drugged and raped her in 1992. And it was videotaped. She told her coach. The coach got a copy of the tape. Then the athletic director named George Perles, still a trustee at Michigan State (“but why aren’t the trustees holding anyone responsible?!?!?!”), forced the coach to turn over the tape, resign, and sign an NDA. 

You should go to prison! And YOU should go to prison! EVERYONE should go to prison!

“How could he have gotten away with it for so long?” they asked.

“Why didn’t the victims come forward sooner?” they asked.

There’s always a George. Looking out for a Larry. 

C. Raschilla to Auburn

We were all wondering what would happen to Bryan Raschilla after he got dumped by Alabama. Well, turns out he will be Auburn’s new volunteer assistant coach in the upcoming season. Because he’s just so green and needed to gain some valuable experience in a volunteer position.

Suzanne, always a trendsetter.

Guys, anyone who’s anyone has an insanely overqualified volunteer assistant coach on staff now. Four for the price of three!

Anyway, my All-Volunteer-Assistant coaching staff of Suzanne Yoculan, Bryan Raschilla, Jordyn Wieber, and Courtney McCool will coach you to all the national championships.

It’s early days still, but a few teams have started to release their 2019 schedules. So, remember to set aside January 18th for LSU/Florida, February 1 for Oklahoma/Florida, and the weekend of February 22-24 for Utah/UCLA (I mean, it basically needs three days). Also all the other days. Most dates and times will be tentative or ill-defined until the networks resolve their TV schedules. Tap tap tap.  

D. Other whatevers

-Larisa Iordache has undergone a third surgery on her Achilles.

Romania is like, “Ring ring, we need you for worlds. You can be back in 5 weeks yes? Cool.”

 

-Aliya has no time for inbar truthers.

https://twitter.com/cherity1313/status/1039571209745309696

Kyla is like, “See, turdmuffins? Do you want a BABY now?”

 

-Mary Lou Regretton will be on Dancing with the Stars.

Everyone under 60 is like, “They still do that show?”

 

-Dipa’s coach says she has to do the Produnova to make the Olympics.

Dipa’s like, “Do hospitals have membership clubs?”

 

-Oleg Verniaiev returned to competition at the Bundesliga.

The Addiction Network is like, “Call the Addiction Network.”

 

E. GymCastic

This week, we have a Kerry Perry postmortem, a discussion of who’s getting arrested now (it’s everyone), and a little preview of next week’s conversation with Jessica, Miss Val, and Mary Lee Tracy. I haven’t heard it yet, but am already clenching all the things about it.