The women’s gymnastics competition officially begins at the Rio Olympics with the qualification session on Sunday, Aug. 6. But before they go before the judges, the gymnasts get to practice in the Olympic Arena in a session called podium training.
Fans can go inside the U.S. women’s podium training and watch live as Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, Madison Kocian and Laurie Hernandez perform their Olympic routines. Click here to watch the podium training session livestream on NBC Olympics at 4:30 p.m. ET.
Podium training is an opportunity for the gymnasts to get a feel for the equipment they’ll be competing on, as not every floor, for example, has the same amount of bounce. The green-on-green color of the Olympic Arena will also take some time for the gymnasts to adjust to.
The other benefit of podium training is that it can be used to simulate the actual competition. The U.S. women’s team will start on floor exercise in both podium training and qualifications, and rotate through the events in the same order.
They’ll likely perform their routines in the same line-up as the competition, which makes podium training a preview of which gymnasts will compete on which events.
In the qualification round, a gymnast must compete on all four events to be eligible for the all-around final. So if Douglas only trains routines on three events in podium training, she’ll likely be out of the running for a second Olympic all-around gold before the competition even begins.
Douglas, Biles, Raisman and Hernandez are all strong contenders for the Olympic all-around podium, but the two-per-country rule means that only half of them will advance to the final. Biles, the three-time all-around world champion, is a lock for one of those spots.
Raisman finished fourth in the all-around at the 2012 Olympics after losing a tie-breaker for the bronze medal, and London’s “unfinished business” has given her the motivation to return for a second Games. Douglas won all-around silver at the 2015 World Championships and hopes to be the first female gymnast since Vera Caslavska in 1968 to win two consecutive all-around Olympic titles. 16-year-old Hernandez beat Raisman and Douglas to rank second behind Biles on three out of four nights of competition at this summer’s final domestic meets.
Update: Aimee Boorman, head coach of the U.S. women’s team, confirmed on Twitter that all five of the gymnasts will be training on all five events. The line-up will be determined after podium training.
In the U.S. men’s podium training session yesterday, only Sam Mikulak and Chris Brooks trained on all the events. Danell Leyva, a 2012 Olympic bronze medalist in the all-around, did not. The full event replay of the U.S. men’s gymnastics team’s podium training can be watched here.