Sarah Voss retires and leaves a long legacy of excellence and unitards — Alicia Zhou looks forward to Stanford

Sarah Voss, a 10-year veteran of the German national team, is retiring from gymnastics. 

Germany has gone through a wave of retirements since the Paris Olympics, signaling a changing of the guard on a team where dominance has long been established by, as GymCastic often puts it, grown-ass women. 

Voss competed at the senior elite level for a decade, becoming one of Germany’s most-decorated stars. She won the German national all-around title in both 2019 and 2022 and was on the German team at both the Tokyo and Paris Olympics. She was part of the bronze-medal winning German squad at the 2022 European Championships, a year after debuting a competitive unitard at the same competition. When they wore them at the Tokyo Olympics a few months later, they made waves in the international media — gymnasts! Covering their legs! The story made The New York Times (gift link), Time, Sports Illustrated and Vogue.

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You might laugh at the mass media hysteria that unitard caused, but it was actually a really big deal for a sport that continues to insist that its uniform cannot evolve beyond becoming skimpier. Voss, along with her teammates Kim Bui, Elisabeth Seitz, and Pauline Schäfer-Betz, proclaimed that the unitards stood “against sexualization in gymnastics.” 

All of those women, except Schäfer-Betz, are now retired, but the legacy they leave for future generations of gymnasts in and out of Germany is huge. 

Other gym news

The Gymternet serves up the top WAG scores through July.

College Gym News has a round table on injury comebacks to watch in 2026, plus which teams won, and who lost, in the transfer portal after the 2025 season.

GymCastic announced that their guest at their live show after nationals this month will be Morgan Hurd.

Lauren Little has committed to UCLA. A former elite, Little began her NCAA career at Alabama, took a year off and went to community college, and has now returned to finish out her eligibility in Westwood. 

Mya Hooten will become Minnesota’s new assistant coach. 

Owen Field of Florida will become the team’s general manager and associate head coach. 

Five at The IX: Alicia Zhou 

Alicia Zhou competes in the uneven bars during the 2024 Winter Cup on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024 at the Kentucky International Convention Center.

Zhou gave an interview to USA Gymnastics’ Sarah Firth following the US Classic, where she won uneven bars bronze. Zhou was the all-around winner at American Classic and the bars champion at Winter Cup this year. She is off to Stanford in the fall, and we can’t wait to see her compete in NCAA.