Emma Slevin & Regionals Debate Club
GymCastic: The Gymnastics Podcast
GymCastic: The Gymnastics Podcast
4.6 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The judges association continues to block attempts at transparency and accountability. Florida, UCLA, Utah, LSU, Oklahoma and the rest of the NCAA field are heading into Regionals with huge questions around judging, qualification, and who can actually make nationals. We discuss the latest judging response, preview the biggest Regionals debates, and interview Ireland's Emma Slevin about NCAA, elite gymnastics, and her Olympic plans.
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INTERVIEW
Emma Slevin of Minnesota and Ireland on:
- Gymnastics Ireland's pathway system
- Why she chose NCAA gymnastics
- Adjusting from elite to college gymnastics
- Whether FIG should allow safety mats
- Her future goals in NCAA and elite
REGIONALS DEBATE CLUB
- Is Utah in real danger of missing nationals?
- Is Florida the national title favorite?
- Is home advantage actually bad for LSU?
- Is SEC dominance real or overhyped?
- Which individuals must qualify to nationals?
GYMTERNET NEWS
- Rebeca Andrade plans to return in 2026
- Iowa State transfer news
- All-Americans released
- Fisk competed its final meet
- SafeSport and abuse case updates
- Simone Biles opens a restaurant at Houston airport
CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold Open: FIG Rules and Mats Debate
00:32 Intro: Emma Slevin, Judging Response and Regionals
01:38 Judges Respond to Interview
10:49 Jesolo Highlights
14:06 Emma Slevin Interview
30:47 Live Show, Fantasy and Updates
33:30 Regionals Debate Club
35:13 Oregon State Regional: Utah in Trouble?
45:36 Arizona State Regional: Is Florida the Favorite?
56:01 LSU Regional Debate
1:08:26 Kentucky Regional Debate
1:14:39 Must-Watch Individual Qualifiers
1:20:17 Gymternet News
1:26:49 Outro
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | should the FIG look at this and adopt it maybe? |
| 0:03.5 | Yeah, I don't know how they have it. |
| 0:05.1 | Like, I don't see an issue with it at all. |
| 0:07.3 | And like, I don't really use mats that much just because my sales, like, in NCA, I don't need them. But like, I don't do my Jaeger here. And if I did do my Jaeger, I know I'd want that mat in. To me, I just can't wrap my head around why it's not permitted yet. |
| 0:20.9 | But I really hope that that rule is like really pushed to be changed because I just feel like it could prevent so many unnecessary injuries. |
| 0:30.6 | Today we have the Pride of Ireland. Minnesota's MS-Leven is here. We have a response from the Judges |
| 0:40.3 | Association following our judge interview last week and back by popular demand. The regional |
| 0:46.8 | debate club is here. Today is March 30th, 26 and welcome to the number one gymnastics podcast |
| 0:52.6 | in the Galaxy. I'm Jessica Spencer from the |
| 0:55.0 | balance film situation. NCAA live show tickets are on sale now. So this is at NCAA championships, |
| 1:03.5 | April 17th, the day off. It's very fun. There's a margarita stand club members. You can get an |
| 1:09.2 | early bird discount. It ends on Wednesday, April 1st, which is tomorrow. And this is open to everyone. You can come in person or you can get a virtual ticket and you can ask questions to our special guests with the virtual ticket. You can chat with other watchers with the virtual ticket. There's games. And as of this recording, there's only one |
| 1:28.3 | VIP ticket left. So get your tickets now at Jimcastle.com. All right, Spencer, it was an |
| 1:36.0 | eventful week last week. Was it? Tell me about it. So we had a response last week to our interview |
| 1:42.4 | with the judge, Jason Buttons, who talked about a lot of issues |
| 1:47.5 | that we have both heard from both coaches and judges and gymnasts for, you know, the past |
| 1:54.2 | 15, 20 years, which is about, you know, judging not being consistent in NCAA and USAG meets. |
| 2:03.0 | That interview made a lot of people happy because a lot of people felt like, |
| 2:07.9 | oh, finally someone is willing to say this out loud and the rest of us are afraid to say it |
| 2:12.2 | because it will affect our jobs or affect our judging assignments or it will affect how |
| 2:16.3 | my gymnasts are judged. |
| 2:18.0 | So we got a response from the National Association of Women's Gymnastics Judges, |
... |
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