Uncle Tim was there for opening day of the (poorly attended) Battle of California:
Haas Pavilion was packed on Sunday afternoon for the first of five matchups between Stanford and Cal this season.
… Cal lost to Stanford: 425.000 to 411.150. As the scores indicate, it was a rather decisive victory for the Cardinal gymnasts, who basically swept the individual titles as well. (Cal’s Jeffrey Langenstein tied Stanford’s Eddie Penev for the floor title. That was the only first place finish for the Bears.) Generally speaking, if a college team is going to be in the hunt, it needs to score 70 or above on almost every apparatus. Cal, unfortunately, fell short of that mark on five of the six events. …
Even though they lost, Cal has a lot to be proud of. Their team is made up of mostly freshmen–13 of their 20 gymnasts are freshmen–and for their youth, they posted a very respectable team score. …
My biggest concern for both teams is their health. More specifically, I’m worried about the gymnasts’ knees. On floor exercise, the trend is to do a lot of twisting in combination. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of gymnasts twisting right off the ground (a big no-no), as well as many who were still twisting as they’re feet are hitting the ground (an even bigger no-no). Those two things, in and of themselves, are recipes for disaster …
Click PLAY or watch Eddie Penev’s Floor on YouTube.
Team scores from the weekend
Penn State: 446.85 (HOLY MOTHER OF NADIA!)
Illinois: 425.45
Stanford: 425.00
Oklahoma: 423.5
Nebraska: 418.9
7 comments ↓
I can’t remember why Eddie gave up his ability to compete for Bulgaria. He would have been Jovtchev’s successor.
Eddie wanted to compete for the USA.
There is a lot more to being a Jovtchev than just gymnastics.
I could see why Penev would choose the US over being a big fish in a small pond. The US has a lot more money and resources.
If Penev makes the US National team, it’s going to be a lot less isolated than if he just trained for Bulgaria.
His goal is Rio, and the US will almost surely qualify a full team. Eddie may think he has a better shot at going that way as opposed to qualifying as an individual.
The US had 8 zillion tumblers and vaulters, so he will probably need a third TF worthy event, which for him would probably end up being Pbars.
If his goal is to make Rio he would be far better competing for Bulgaria. The current rules make it quite easy to qualify if you are the best from a weak country. From the London test event, some of the qualifiers were scoring around 80, something that Eddie could easily do. So really, all he would have to do would be the best from Bulgaria, which shouldn’t be too hard for him given that Bulgaria is struggling at the moment. On the other hand, given his strengths, qualifying for the US team will be almost mission impossible.
It’s possible Penev just thought he would have a better experience competing for the US.
I wouldn’t rule Eddie out for Rio. He’s great on FX, has been training a Li vault, and could probably get himself TF worthy on PB if he pushes it. He’s really not that much worse off than most of the other US FX/VT specialists. He’s a long shot, but he’s by no means attempting “mission impossible”.
If he makes the US Olympic team, he’s going to be in the Olympic TF final (barring some huge disaster). If he goes as an individual, he might not make any final.
I can see if Eddie wants to train at the USOTC. After being in a college atmosphere that would make a lot of sense. But his mother owns a gym and he could train there for free. Plus, he would be more likely to get all sorts of World Cup etc. assignments with the chance to make money.
To clarify I was saying he would get more assignments with Bulgaria not the US.
WTF? He wants to compete for USA instead of Bulgaria?? I think he has just said bye-bye to his olympic hopes.
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