Gymnastics Coaching.com

Vault
1. Legendre (Oklahoma)
2. Sender (Stanford)
3. Wickham (Ohio)

Parallel Bars
1. McNeill (Cal)
2. Sandy (Penn State)
3. Haagensen (Illinois)

Horizontal Bar
1. Ruggeri (Illinois)
2. Storer (Minnesota)
3. Dixon (Stanford)

Vault was the strongest final. Legendre nailed a handspring double front to edge Sender and Wickham, both with near perfect “Shewfelt” vaults. (Yurchenko 5/2 twist).

McNeill from Berkeley and Legendre from Oklahoma were the biggest stars of the night, each taking home 2 golds.

Steven Legendre

Most often finals are anti-climactic. Not the case this year. It was a good meet with few errors.

The audience was much subdued from Team Finals, however. Like me, many are still in shock that Stanford lost Team.

Video from some of the top routines yet to come.

Full results linked as PDF files from the official competition page.

Floor
1. Legendre (Oklahoma)
2T. Sandy (Penn State)
2T. Wickham (Ohio)

Pommel
1. McNeill (Cal)
2. Sandy (Penn State)
3. Nakamori (Stanford)

Rings
1. Horton (Oklahoma)
2. Sender (Stanford)
3. Ramos (Penn State)

David Sender

Full results linked as PDF files from the official competition page.

Like most of the home crowd in San Jose last night, I was drinking the Stanford Kool-Aid. A championship for the Cardinal seemed predestined.

Legendary former Stanford coach Sadao Hamada flew from Japan for the soon-to-be historic competition. Stanford alumni National Champion David Durante flew in to cheer on his team.

Despite a shaky start on PBars, Stanford looked good. OU was having problems, too.

In fact, when the scoreboard flashed the Team results at the end of the competition, I was still convinced Stanford had won. Assuming that the last of Stanford’s vault scores had not been tabulated. (Live scoring online and in the arena were both very confusing throughout the meet.)

It wasn’t until I was this scene erupted in front of my eyes, that I finally understood …

The Oklahoma men’s gymnastics team claimed the 2008 NCAA Championship with a 363.200-362.750 victory over event host and top-seeded Stanford Friday night. Once again the title came down to the final event as OU finished strong on rings …

It was an ending that couldn’t have been scripted any better. Facing a deficit of almost two points with its final two competitors left to go on rings, the Sooners looked to senior co-captains Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons and Jonathan Horton to make one final charge at the title. …

Needing a score of at least 15.700 to win the title, Horton came through with a career-high score of 16.100, sticking his dismount and securing his third NCAA team championship as a Sooner.

“That was the first rings routine I think I’ve ever done where at the end I wasn’t tired at all because I had so much adrenaline going,” Horton said. “It was just so much fun to be up there in that handstand before my dismount just thinking, `I’m going to stick this. I’m going to give our team a shot.’ I know Taqiy was thinking the same thing. We all had to do our jobs. Everybody was clutch tonight and came through when we needed them.” …

Sooner Sports

I should have known not to underestimate Oklahoma. They’ve now won 5 of the last 7 Team titles under coach Mark Williams.

Dave commented on this blog that OU earlier this season scored 364.60 vs Minnesota. The highest score in the NCAA in 2008.

The competition was close:

FX: Oklahoma 62.60 vs 61.85 Stanford
PH: Oklahoma 56.20 vs 57.35 Stanford
R: Oklahoma 61.70 vs 62.05 Stanford
V: Oklahoma 64.15 vs 63.75 Stanford
PB: Oklahoma 59.65 vs 58.55 Stanford
HB: Oklahoma 58.90 vs 59.20 Stanford

I feel very badly for Stanford. They did so much right this season. Only to end in disappointment.

I spoke to Stanford’s David Sender leaving the arena. All he could say was, “I’m tired.”

Dave and the other finalists need to recharge the batteries quickly. Apparatus FINALS are tonight.

Inside Gymnastics has more analysis – SOONERS SHAKE-UP STANFORD

Nice drill for beginners working towards “Moy”.

There are two elastic straps tied to the Parallel Bars. One the hips should hit; the other the feet should hit.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Concentrating on getting his hips up, the gymnast stops worrying about his grip on the bars.

I also like how the “bail” on the downswing is made easier by starting with the feet on mats.

Thanks coolgymnast.

See the most advanced version: amazing long hang swing on parallel bars (China).

NCAA Utah star confirms what most expected:

… Utah senior Ashley Postell has decided she isn’t going to pursue her hopes of competing in the 2008 Olympics because she realized she doesn’t have enough time to get her routines in order.

“That ship has sailed,” she said. “I don’t have enough extra time to work on other skills and do things I need to do for the team. My routines would have to be twice as long as they are now and it’s too much to do in a month.”

Salt Lake Tribune

I asked Men’s NCAA Champion Casey Sandy about his upcoming preparations for Canadian Olympic trials. Casey will take a “couple of day off” to rest and catch up on school. Then back to training for Beijing.

Sho Nakamori, David Sender, Jon Horton and others in the NCAA — all in the same boat. Their ship has not yet sailed.

It’s much easier for a male gymnast to switch gears for international FIG competition because they need make fewer changes to their College routines.

1. Oklahoma – 363.200

2. Stanford – 362.750

3. Illinois – 359.750

4. Penn State – 357.650

5. California – 356.150

6. Michigan – 354.250

CONGRATULATIONS to the Sooners. And my apologies for not realizing they could increase their Team total almost 6pts from their 357.500 qualifying score.

Oklahoma finished on Rings, hitting some great sets for the victory over hosts Stanford.

Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons

CSTV recap, notes and quotes

Shawn Johnson <— the real deal

seriously.

The Hardest Vault in the World
The Hardest Beam Dismount in the World
The Hardest Bar Dismount in the World
The Hardest Tumbling Pass in the World

cccam on WIDLES

Yes, I know Shawn’s gymnastics is “unconventional”. So was Mary Lou Retton. There are many parallels between the two.

But Shawn Johnson is the most complete all-around gymnast under the current, crazy set of rules which will be applied in Beijing.

ClayBabe6 has a well-edited Shawn montage called So Far Away:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Live.Breath.Love.Gymnastics

Money in the bank. Hitting routine after routine.

Just how Casey did it all year.

Consistency. And no weak apparatus. He was ranked in the top 10 in all 6 apparatus on GymInfo.

Casey finished with 91.35 in victory.

Congratulations to Casey and the coaching staff at Penn State.

He’s the first Canadian to win NCAA’s since Jason Hardabura (Nebraska) in 1999.

Coach Randy Jepson quipped that Casey is the “Rodney Dangerfield” of gymnastics. That he “gets no respect”.

He’s in the record books now. That’s respect.

That’s my prediction. Barring an earthquake, the favourites will win tonight at home.

UPDATE: An earthquake did rock Stanford. An earthquake called the Oklahoma Sooners. Stanford finished in second place, upset by OU.

The competition is only just beginning here in San Jose. It’s already getting LOUD.

This Stanford team has everything. One of the deepest College teams of all-time, perhpas. And they know it. One of their mottos for 2008 is “The Start of a Fearsome Reign.”

This really could be the start of a dynasty.

To outpoint Stanford one the 5 other teams will need a BEST performance of the year, I think.

Cal Berkeley Head Coach Barry Weiner said last night that his team is going to “let it all hang out”.

Their star, Tim McNeill, who competed only Pommels in preliminaries due to back pain, is going back into the line-up today. Cal has the green light to throw their best stuff. Their going to need it to have a chance.

The best coverage of the Men’s NCAA Championships, by the way, so far has been on Inside Gymnastics:

No. 1 Stanford easily led all qualifiers on Thursday, with solid, polished performances. (They didn’t count a miss all evening.) Redshirt junior Sho Nakamori, who contributed a near perfect high bar routine, among other super-clean sets, led the all-around standings with a 90.35, his highest all-around total ever. Teammate David Sender also did the all-around for an 89.6, including a 16.2 vault (very high, but big step forward).

Cardinal coach Thom Glielmi elected to use the qualifying competition as a dress rehearsal for finals, going with the same line-up he plans for this evening. “This is the first time [this season] we went with the full line-up,” he said. “Some of the individual routines weren’t as sharp as we have had in previous meets, but the depth of our line-up, and the difficulty that the team brings, [still allowed us] to break our team’s personal [scoring] record.”

Overall, Stanford earned a whopping 363.85, their highest score of the season, while Illinois surprised some with a near-perfect night for second overall (359.3), including a meet-high pommels performance from freshman Daniel Ribeiro who earned a 15.7, more than a point better than any athlete in session one. …

read more … Inside Gymnastics

What do you say to the media when your team wins the preliminary competition by a whopping 4.55 points?

Click PLAY or watch Head Coach Thom Glielmi on YouTube: