Passion Blog #4 – Review of Week 8 in NCAA Men’s Gymnastics

As hard as it is to believe, last weekend rapped up the BIG 10 regular season and its only a week until the BIG 10 Championships begin in Columbus! While my teammates and coaches have frequently echoed the cliché “it’ll be over before you know it”, I could have never imagined the season go by this fast. As a junior elite gymnast, I can recall the season stretching on for seemingly forever with only a few major invitational competitions throughout the year that required highly specified training cycles. The environment is completely different in college with competitions every weekend that leave for new skill and routine development and very little time to recover in between competitions. For any athlete making the transition into Division I athletics, I would certainly consider this the greatest challenge and adjustment. Being required to perform at an incredibly high level every weekend, or even more frequently in other sports, while balancing travel, academics, and getting the necessary rest and recovery is incredible taxing. Nonetheless, I am grateful for every second of it and cannot wait to end the season on a high note with great team finishes at the BIG 10 and NCAA championships!

As last week was the last week in the regular BIG 10 season, the winner of the “regular season BIG 10 championship” was finalized. While it was unfortunately not Penn State, our T-2nd place finish in the standings certainly reflects a great effort throughout the season, especially considering the challenges and obstacles we have faced. For our last BIG 10 meet, we went on the road to Columbus to face both the Buckeyes and the Oklahoma Sooners in a tri-meet. Despite having to rest a few of our top guys and rely more on guys who haven’t had much experience this year, we were able to edge out Ohio State by a score of 404.5 – 397.6. The victory was even more exciting considering the fact that we were down by over 2 points at the halfway point of the meet due to a rough rotation on the pommel horse. Our comeback was mounted by a stellar parallel bar rotation that yielded a season high score of 70.100. During that rotation, Ohio State was on the high bar, naturally a very risky event, and had to count a collection of falls that brought their rotation score only to a 62.9. This over seven point swing gave us a comfortable lead over Ohio State that we maintained throughout the final rotation on high bar. The Oklahoma Sooners also had an outstanding performance this meet with high scores on floor, vault, and parallel bars pushing them to a team score 410.0. While Oklahoma’s performance did not count against us in the standings, as it was still technically an intraconference meet, it was nonetheless nice to see how we match up against one of the top teams in the country heading into championship season. With only a five point margin of separation at this meet, I am inclined to believe that having all of our guys rested and in peak condition by the NCAA championships could easily put us in striking distance of a podium finish.

On the other side of the BIG 10, the Michigan Wolverines took on the Illini in Ann Arbor to decide the BIG 10 regular season champion. Just like our meet, the Wolverines were actually down by a considerable margin at the halfway point and fought back hard to grab the regular season crown with a 411-405 win. Their impressive final event high bar rotation combined with multiple falters by Illini gymnasts secured them the victory, one again demonstrating the importance of consistency and confidence under pressure in gymnastics. The meet was also won without the help of the Wolverines’ two best all arounders, Landen Blixt and Frederick Richard, both of whom were competing in international competitions as apart of their assignments on the Senior National Team. Going into the BIG 10 Championships next week, while Michigan is certainly the favorite, I believe that it is truly any teams competition to win. Ultimately, I believe it will come down to what team, regardless of what injuries or lineup adjustments they have to make, is able to demonstrate the most consistency and refinement. As my coaches have preached to us frequently at practice, the difficulty (potential) scores of most BIG 10 teams is fairly even, it is the execution score that must be emphasized to win championships. Thus, our next few weeks of practice are highly focused on perfecting the details and making small adjustments while putting as little strain on bodies as possible to tapper us for the intense stretch ahead.