100 Years of Men's gymnastics at University of Illinois

March 2009 marked the 100th anniversary of men's gymnastics at the University of Illinois. I made the trek out there for the reunion, and had a great time. This a pic with two very special people. On the left is Justin Spring, an Illini Alum who was in the 2008 olympics and is now coaching at Illinois. In the center is Ivan Ivankov, the great Belarussian gymnast.

Illinois is fortunate to have such world class talent coaching for them. This should be an extremely attractive draw for recruiting new talent, and a great way for the current gymnasts to seek improvement from two world class gymnasts who can do every trick in the book!. They've been there, done that and can tell the guys how to follow in their footsteps.

Winter Cup '09

Here are some pics I took at Winter Cup in Vegas. You can find more on my facebook page. All in all, I was most impressed with a few young talented gymnasts, as well as the polished refined styles of the likes of Jonathan Horton, Joey Haggerty, and a few other veterans. As for College teams, Illinois looked good, yet Stanford looked nearly unstoppable. I left the meet feeling extremely happy that I am retired from gymnastics. Not to say I have any regrets or misgivings, but the level of difficulty that is being performed is much greater than when I was competing, thus much more dangerous! After reading Malcom Gladwell's "Outliers," I can attribute the increase in difficulty primarily to coaching, and the code of points demanding a higher level of difficulty. I noticed quite a few former Russian coaches on the floor this weekend -Vitaly Scherbo, Rustom Sharipov, Ivan Ivankov, Dimitry Bilozerchev, and many more - all Olympic champions and the idols of the kids they coach. I expect to see more of the trend to continue for more difficult gymnastics with better execution until we catch up with the Chinese (hopefully). Enjoy the pics, any thoughts?