Tip sheet

The LA28 cycle has already started

The athletes who will compete in Los Angeles are training now, and many are already carrying the decisions being made this year. A home Games changes the pressure in ways a road Games does not: more media, more sponsor obligation, more family in the building, and four years of being told this is the one that matters.

What does a home Olympics do to an athlete’s preparation? Which injuries show up in the middle years of a cycle rather than the final one? How do coaches manage an athlete peaking two years early? What should the parents of a current elite athlete be watching for?

Are parents stressing their kids out?

Many of today’s parents have put their children at the centre of their attention, making sure they are engaged every waking moment. For a lot of families that means youth sports — and it is not unusual for one kid to compete on several teams in different sports at the same time. Serious sports injuries in children are no longer uncommon.

How can parents help prevent these injuries? What should they look for? How does a parent tell the difference between a kid who is tired and a kid who is burning out? Does the push from a parent put too much load on a growing body?

I quit. Now what?

Michael Jordan did it three times. So did Brett Favre. Michael Phelps and Dara Torres came out of retirement to compete — and win more medals.

Governing bodies have been criticised for years for not preparing athletes for a balanced life after competition. And this is not only an elite problem: a high school athlete who goes to college and stops training the way they used to feels the same drop.

Why is it so hard for some athletes to stop? Why do some seem completely lost afterwards? Can an athlete be addicted to competition? What happens to body chemistry when someone stops training after fifteen years of it? What can parents do to help a kid through it?

What does it take to be world-class?

Elite athletes turn in performances that look like pure talent. Talent only takes an athlete so far.

What are the other components? How much of it is recovery, sleep, and the boring infrastructure nobody films? What separates the athlete who makes a team from the equally talented one who does not?

How old is too old?

More athletes than ever are competing across multiple Olympic cycles and holding elite training against much younger competitors.

How are they doing it? What are the advantages of a body that has been through two or three cycles — and where does youth still win? What changes in training have made longer careers possible?

Injuries, explained

Gina is a genuinely useful phone call on deadline. She can explain an injury, the risk of competing on it, and what recovery actually involves — in language that does not need a medical degree.

What the injury is and how it happened; how long an elite athlete in that specific sport needs to return safely at the top level; how it is likely to affect performance afterwards; what the return process actually demands; a plain-English explanation of a surgery an athlete has had or needs.

Healthier and happier

National governing bodies have gone through major overhauls balancing safety — mental and physical — against performance, and athlete autonomy against coach authority. Some of those changes are now old enough to judge.

Are athletes arriving at major competitions healthier than they did a decade ago? Can they tolerate the weeks of preparation and stress better? How do we actually measure that — and what are the sport-specific ways of testing it?

Speaking up

Today’s athletes have more say in their training, health and wellness than any generation before them, and they have used their voices to advocate for themselves.

How has the coach–athlete relationship changed? Who is calling the shots now? Has the pendulum swung all the way to the athlete? How are coaches and administrators navigating it?

Code breaker

Need help telling an Amanar from a Tsukahara? Gina can break down gymnastics jargon on air — and explain why certain skills get named after the athletes who first landed them (the Biles) and written into the rule book for good.

Skills are pushing the limits

Gymnastics is judged on a two-part system: the D score (difficulty) and the E score (execution). The mix is what produces a medal-winning number. An athlete who attempts harder skills and executes them poorly stresses the whole risk–reward equation.

How do sports and their governing bodies keep the thrill without trading away athlete safety? How has the difficulty arms race changed the way the sport develops — and the way audiences watch it?

Gender, hormones and performance

In a period of record-breaking performances by women, Gina can speak to the factors behind them: age, competing post-childbirth, hormonal change across a career, and the physiological differences that make a woman’s athletic career follow a different shape from a man’s.

Figure skating

Gina works with US Figure Skating on an ongoing basis, including on site at Grand Prix events. She is a USFSA professional member, has provided medical coverage for the US delegation at the Cup of China and the Leon Lurje Cup in Sweden, and has trained USFSA medical staff on the etiology of lower spine injuries.

How do skating injuries differ from gymnastics injuries when the skills look similar? What does the jump progression do to a young skater’s spine and hips? What should a skating parent be watching for?