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GymCastic: The Gymnastics Podcast

SafeSport Finally Suspends Al Fong as Jordan Chiles Dominates NCAA Week One

GymCastic: The Gymnastics Podcast

GymCastic: The Gymnastics Podcast

Sports

4.71.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2026

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

SafeSport has suspended Al Fong for five years after a nearly six year long investigation, Melanie de Jesus dos Santos confirms her return ''to the gym'', and all the NCAA news to kick off the 2026 season.

HEADLINES

  • SafeSport has suspended Al Fong for five years after a nearly six year long investigation
    • Armine was also suspended for one year after acting as the head coach of the Junior Worlds squad
    • Both coaches were suspended for emotional and physical misconduct
    • Listen to our interviews with Ivana Hong, Terin Humphrey, and Sarah Shire Brown, who talk about their time at GAGE under coach Al Fong
  •  Melanie de Jesus dos Santos confirms her return ''to the gym'' according to her Instagram

GYMTERNET NEWS

  • More discontent brewing in France: 15-year-old Elena Colas, the junior world all-around silver medalist, declined a call-up to a French national team training camp in Martinique
  • SafeSport Continues to Fail
  • Romanian Infighting
    • An audio recording reveals Camelia Voinea urging supporters to attack coach Corina Moroșan, exposing a deep internal power struggle over how the gymnastics should be run in Romania
  • OC Coach Arrested
    • 25-year-old Jacob Alexander Demmin was arrested following an investigation into an alleged relationship with a girl under the age of 18 at Firestorm Freerunning.
  • Ellie Freakin' Black finally getting the recognition she deserves
    • Ellie Black was named to Order of Canada: the second-highest honor for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada

NCAA

  • The 2026 college season has begun!
    • Is competing in the first week of the season a good idea? bad idea? The WORST idea?
    • Jordan Chiles went 39.725 in week 1, leading the nation in the all-around standings, thoughts?
    • UCLA is ranked no. 1 with a 196.975
      • How does UCLA's freshmen class fit into this picture?
    • Missouri went 196.850, counting a fall on beam!
    • Corrupt or Correct: Utah's scores, as covered on college and cocktails this week
    • Clemson breaking into the 196s after the first meet is a win
      • A triumph for vault variety! The first four vaults in Clemson's lineups were different
    • Cal broke into the 196s, an important result for the team to show they aren't dead
  • Leaps spotlight
    • Paulina Vargas, sophomore at Oregon State, proving to us that nobody really cares if you only do a two-pass floor routine as long as your leaps look as good as hers
  • Spotlight: The Show
    • Nina Ballou at LSU's exhibition SOLD her dance through, bringing like 15 different celebrations during the intros
  • Is it time to be worried?
    • Iowa State's 191.325 is their lowest score since 1999

RELATED EPISODES

UP NEXT

  • College & Cocktails: Saturday, Jan 10, 3pm Pacific, following Sprouts Quad session 1 (Oklahoma, UCLA, Utah, LSU)
  • Add exclusive Club Content like College & Cocktails to your favorite podcast player (instructions here).

SUPPORT OUR WORK 

MERCH

  • GymCastic Store: clothing and gifts to let your gym nerd flag fly and even "tapestries" (banners, the perfect to display in an arena) to support your favorite gymnast!

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS

  • Huel Daily Greens Ready to Drink – Get 20% off your purchase for New Customers with our exclusive code GYMCASTIC20 at https://huel.com/GYMCASTIC. Use our code and fill out the post checkout survey to help support the show!

  • Thank you to our Sponsor: "Broken to Unbreakable" by Lori Vollkommer available on Amazon or wherever you buy your books

NEWSLETTERS

FANTASY GAME:

  • GymCastic 2026 College Fantasy Game now open. Never too late to join!

RESOURCES

RESISTANCE  Submitted by our listeners.

 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

NCAA season is upon us. That glorious time of year when we get to watch your favorite elites from home and abroad compete every weekend for almost four months. It is our favorite time of the year. We're going to break everything down for you. And this first weekend, it was like a mini, mini launch of NCAA season. Al Fong has finally been suspended by Saysport. We're going to give

0:24.4

you all the details and tell you why Ellie Black has finally been given the blessings she deserves

0:30.0

by her home country. Today is January 5th, 2026. Welcome to the number one from Nessus podcast

0:36.1

in the Galaxy. I'm Jessica. I to hear with Spencer from the balancing news situation.

0:40.5

Spencer,

0:41.2

should we get to the headlines?

0:42.5

Because something I never thought was going to happen,

0:46.2

finally happened.

0:47.7

Yes.

0:48.0

So headline number one,

0:50.7

SafeSport has suspended Al-Fong,

0:54.0

coach at Gage, for five years, so that would be until 2030.

0:59.0

And this is after a investigation that was almost six years long by SafeSport.

1:05.6

Also, Armini Barutian is suspended for one year.

1:14.2

And Armini was just, has been on the floor most consistently with the gauge athletes and was just the head coach of the junior world's team this past

1:20.8

fall, winter. So both have been suspended for physical and emotional misconduct.

1:28.4

Jessica, because I know you like to historically contextualize.

1:31.9

Do you want to give the history?

1:34.6

Yeah, if you're not familiar with these two coaches, but especially Al-Fong, they coach

1:38.3

at Gage, and they are, Al-Fong is the coach of Julissa Gomez, who broke her neck on vault.

1:46.3

And then her breathing tube became disconnected at the hospital in Japan.

1:50.9

And then she became brain dead at that point and eventually died.

...

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