By Josh Weinfuss

While most 12-year-olds are worrying about who's taking them to the mall or who their latest crush is, Lauren Bancroft is more concerned about practice.

Yes, practice.

She already spends about 25 hours per week in the gym, learning from USA Gymnastics National Team member and World Champion Jordyn Wieber, who also trains at Gedderts' Twistars USA in Lansing, Mich., as well as fine tuning a routine that helped qualify Bancroft for the Nastia Liukin Cup.

"All the hard work in the gym paid off," Bancroft said.

She might be short on words, but Bancroft has established herself as one of the fiercest competitors in her age division.

"She's a great little competitor," said her coach, John Geddert. "She loves to compete. If she worked out as she hard as she competed, she'd be a lot further along.

"If she gets motivated by the crowd, she's never seen anything like what she'll see at the Nastia Liukin Cup. This will be a great experience for her; the podium and the bigger crowd. She's a great competitor. She's a gamer. When the game's on she'll put her best foot forward."

Geddert said Bancroft is one of the most physically gifted athletes he's ever coached. It's evident in her vault.

For most 12-year-olds, the vault is one the toughest apparatuses to conquer. But Bancroft hasn't flinched.

"She's fast and powerful," Geddert said. "That combination is pretty good."

By Josh Weinfuss

Five years ago, Lisa Burt met Ashleigh Gnat.

The two quickly became teammates and became best friends even quicker. So when Burt qualified for her second trip to the Nastia Liukin Cup in as many years a few weeks back, she shared the news with Gnat.

Then, two weeks before the Nastia Liukin Cup, Gnat qualified, sending the best friends to New York together.

"It's pretty awesome because you get to share the same experience," Burt said. "It's really special because you get to share it this time."

Lisa and Ashleigh will also share the Nastia Liukin Cup experience with teammate Alex Ruiz, the third gymnast from Ace Gymnastics in Longwood, Fla.

Even though Gnat qualified two years ago for the Nastia Liukin Cup, Burt has been the one sharing her experiences during the last few weeks. One thing she's told both Ruiz and Gnat is to just enjoy themselves.

"Well, first I never had competed on a podium so taking that into this meet will be much better because I'll know the feeling and know how it runs," Burt said. "But just to have more fun. Last year I was kinda focused on the meet and not on the surroundings and the meaning of the meet."

Burt has traveled all over the country for meets, from Florida to California and Chicago to Alabama, but the Nastia Liukin Cup is different.

"It's quite an experience and it's a memory maker to me now because you realize how not many people get to go to this meet and you have to really understand and appreciate that you're one of a very few people who qualify and get the privilege to go to this meet," Burt said. "To me now after last year it's a lot more memorable because it's the last year I get to do this. And it's quite an honor to go there now. And to do that with teammates makes it even better."

By Josh Weinfuss

Biscuits is heading to the Big Apple.

No, Charity Jones' real name isn't Biscuits, just a nickname given to her years ago and has stuck ever since.

And yes, Jones has never been to New York City. There, she'll compete in the Nastia Liukin Cup.

Topping Jones' long list of to-dos in New York is the Statue of Liberty and the 9/11 Memorial at the site of World Trade Center. Other than that, the 17-year-old will see New York as it comes.

"This is going to be very exciting for me," Jones said. I'm going to "just walk around and see anything I guess."

Big on experiencing life, Jones wanted to compete in the Nastia Liukin Cup and meet the Olympian namesake since she found out about the meet.

"I just think it's so cool to be in a meet with the Olympic champion," Jones said. "Ever since I saw it I wanted to be a part of it.

"I thought it was a cool experience and then, that I finally made it, it's pretty cool that I get to meet all these people and meet Nastia, and get to experience the whole atmosphere of everything."

But Jones will still be called Biscuits.

The nickname came when she started practicing at her first gym. Jones was small compared to her teammates and one day her coach asked what Jones had for breakfast, which happened to be biscuits and gravy. When Jones moved to her current gym, Dynamo Gymnastics, the nickname came too, but her new coach dropped the gravy.

"It stuck with me," Jones said. "She laughed and said she'd call me Biscuits."

By Josh Weinfuss

All Lauren Ramirez was focused on when she returned to the gym from an avulsion tear was making sure she didn't lose too much being away from gymnastics.

The Nastia Liukin Cup wasn't a priority in late December.

Eight weeks away from gymnastics left Ramirez rusty. When she returned just before 2011 turned into 2012, Ramirez's skills were still there, the 13-year-old said, but she lost most of her strength. Her injury was diagnosed in November, after she competed throughout 2011 with the injury. Ramirez said she couldn't run or any splitting.

"I couldn't put any weight on my legs," she said. "So I couldn't do anything."

After almost two months of being back in the gym, Ramirez found the strength and rhythm she lost. In her first meet back after the avulsion tear, Ramirez qualified for the Nastia Liukin Cup.

"I wasn't even really trying to qualify for it so it was really a surprise," Ramirez said. "I was really nervous just because it was my first meet and I hadn't competed in a long time, and it was my first Level 10 meet."

Helping Ramirez back from injury was her coach, Amanda Borden-Cochran, a member of the 1996 gold-medal winning United States Olympic Team. Borden-Cochran started coaching Ramirez when the latter was 6 years old and has been her only coach.

She said that the young gymnast had a natural gift and has worked with Ramirez to cultivate it.

"I think that's one of the coolest things as a coach," Borden-Cochran said, "to watch these kids grow up not just a gymnast, but grow up as kids."

By Josh Weinfuss

Polina Shchennikova has one goal on her mind. The Olympics.

Competing for the Nastia Liukin Cup is just another step in the right direction, the Denver product believes.

"Every meet is a step for me," Shchennikova said. "It would mean so much to me and my family because we both know that I've been working really hard just to have that would pay everything else off."

Despite competing at the Visa Championships, Shchennikova has been learning how to perform on a stage as large as the Nastia Liukin Cup in a venue like Madison Square Garden from her parents and coaches Alex and Katia Shchennikova. Both parents were "very high athletes" on the Russian Olympic team and now run the gym that Polina trains at, T.I.G.A.R. Alex and Katia nearly made the Olympics, Polina said, and both have been able to share that perspective with their daughter.

"They told me it was a very great experience and even if I don't accomplish my goals I can be proud of myself for accomplishing it this far," Polina said.

Polina missed out on the Nastia Liukin Cup in 2011 and spent the rest of the year thinking of ways to qualify in 2012.

"The experience is going to be great," Shchennikova said. "I was disappointed that I knew I could do better and I would push myself to do it the next time.

"My season was just starting and I really wanted to start out with a good season and prove I could do it. I decided to make my goals to make it to the Nastia Cup."

And she did.

By Josh Weinfuss

It's hard for the lights to get any brighter than in New York City, but they'll be shining on Grace Williams at the Nastia Liukin Cup.

The defending champion is back and has her eyes set on a second-consecutive title.

"It's awesome just to say I'm the defending champion going into it, and knowing that people already know that they want to beat me even more," Williams said. "It means I went in there having the same mentality, not expecting anything, just do my best. If it worked this time id be awesome to say I'm the defending champ of two years. That's pretty cool to say about yourself."

Williams seems to have it all figured out.

She knows her competition is made up of some of the best young talent from across the country, but Williams didn't let herself get intimidated by them. Nor did she let the magnitude of the event distract her.

"I didn't go into it to win, just went in to have fun, and enjoy the experience of competing on a podium again," Williams said. "You know it's the top girls in the country that are competing for the title and it's on a podium so it makes everything look a little bit bigger."

But that shouldn't bother Williams.

The 15-year-old from Linden, Mich., grew up with two brothers, Jordan, 22, and Cameron, 12, who didn't giver Williams a break because she was a girl.

"They're not going to take it easy on me just because I'm a girl," Williams said.

And it didn't help her neighborhood was mostly boys around her age. When she was 11, Williams was playing football with her brothers and their friends, but nobody wanted to tackler her because she was a girl and they thought she might cry. Williams responded by telling them it'd be OK if they tackled her. So, she came home with bruises and scrapes but never complained a second.

"I didn't let it affect me," she said. "I just thought of myself as playing to win."

Just as Williams does in the gym.

She comes to practice with a lunch-pail mentality, coach John Geddert said. She's constantly working hard to improve, while her teammates might be socializing.

But that's just who she is.

"I kinda have an inner drive to be the best," Williams said. "I don't really accept anything other than what I know I'm capable of. I definitely have a strong mentality of what I need to do and what Ineed to get accomplished in and outside of the gym.

"I'm definitely a competitor. I was born with it. I just have a drive to win."

Williams is undefeated this year, and is looking to continue that in New York.

Geddert put it simply: Get out of her way.

"I think she's polished up some of her skills," he said. "In gymnastics, it's not necessarily the difficulty but it's about how well you perform your skills. Things are straighter, higher, faster. Things are polished with a year of training under her belt. She's a year more experienced as a competitor. She's been there before."