Any gymnastics fans?Â
The Pac 12 Gymnastics Championships will take place Saturday at 6pm PT in Salt Lake City. Stanford is ranked 11th nationally and forth in the conference, behind UCLA, host Utah and Oregon State. Back in February, Stanford lost at Utah by two tenths of a point, when our last gymnast fell off the beam while 14,000 spectators were loudly booing the score of a Utah gymnast.Â
While this year's team is young and not expected to win, it features beautiful and varied gymnastics, and talent that represented the US, Canada, Australia, England and the Czech Republic at the Olympics and Worlds. Last year's team looked ready for nationals in January and burned out by March, not even qualifying. This year's team has been smartly paced to assure that the girls avoid injury and peak in the post season.Â
The competition will be tape delayed (a sure way to kill the sport), but Stanford will upload its routines almost immediately on Stanford Women's Gymnastics Facebook page.Â
Here are a couple of my favorite routines:
Nicole Pechanec on bars (with a release she invented, the "Pechancova"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWtJ0ARCMh0
Nicole Pechanec on floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hThGUkMCSk
Ivana Hong on floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ1jGpq5OcE
The Pac 12 Gymnastics Championships will take place Saturday at 6pm PT in Salt Lake City. Stanford is ranked 11th nationally and forth in the conference, behind UCLA, host Utah and Oregon State. Back in February, Stanford lost at Utah by two tenths of a point, when our last gymnast fell off the beam while 14,000 spectators were loudly booing the score of a Utah gymnast.Â
While this year's team is young and not expected to win, it features beautiful and varied gymnastics, and talent that represented the US, Canada, Australia, England and the Czech Republic at the Olympics and Worlds. Last year's team looked ready for nationals in January and burned out by March, not even qualifying. This year's team has been smartly paced to assure that the girls avoid injury and peak in the post season.Â
The competition will be tape delayed (a sure way to kill the sport), but Stanford will upload its routines almost immediately on Stanford Women's Gymnastics Facebook page.Â
Here are a couple of my favorite routines:
Nicole Pechanec on bars (with a release she invented, the "Pechancova"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWtJ0ARCMh0
Nicole Pechanec on floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hThGUkMCSk
Ivana Hong on floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ1jGpq5OcE