Sometimes it’s just easier to move on.
Such is the case in the world of collegiate gymnastics, where
the best college gymnasts in the country regularly watch younger
elite gymnasts do tumbles at the World Championships and Olympics,
all from the friendly confines of their televisions.
Nearly 98 percent of all NCAA gymnasts come from the upper
echelon of gymnastics competition. Most were once World
Championship competitors and even Olympic hopefuls.
And though still eligible to compete at the elite level, once
these gymnasts get to college, they never seem to look back.
One glance at the U.S. women’s gymnastics roster and you
won’t find a single collegiate, even though UCLA had several
seemingly good candidates from its record-breaking NCAA
championship squad this past year.
The reason? Collegiate gymnastics is just easier in many
different ways.
Elite gymnastics scoring is much more stringent. An elite
gymnast can perform the hardest skills and routines and still end
up with a mediocre score. In collegiate gymnastics, though,
perfect 10s are common, seemingly adding a complacency factor.
“In elite competition you have an 8.8 start value,”
UCLA gymnastics coach Valorie Kondos Field said. “In college
our start value is 9.5.”
“It’s very difficult to get a high start value in
elite gymnastics. You really have to add more training time, and
that puts a lot of strain on the body.”
Indeed, NCAA training is a cake-walk compared to what elite
gymnasts go through.
By NCAA law, collegiate gymnasts are limited to 20 hours of
training a week, and though that may sound like plenty to most, it
pales in comparison to the 40-plus hours of training elite gymnasts
normally do in a week.
Former UCLA gymnast Yvonne Tousek, who made two Olympic teams
and competed at the elite level for most of her career, immediately
noticed the difference in training intensities when she got to
UCLA.
“I did a lot of intensive training when I was on the
national team in Canada, and then I came (to UCLA), and it was less
intensive, which was nicer on my body,” Tousek said.
“In college, we’re competing every weekend, but
elite (competition) is harder on the body,” Kondos Field
said. “There’s no way college gymnasts could compete
every weekend at the elite level.”
Nowhere is the lack of collegiate gymnasts more evident than in
Olympic competition, where not even the best college gymnasts in
the country participate.
For example, Bruin gymnast Jeanette Antolin dominated the
collegiate gymnastics scene last season and was the Sports
Illustrated “Gymnast of the Year.” Despite her
success, Antolin refrained from returning to elite competition and
attempting to qualify for the Olympics.
In fact, out of the 18 gymnasts on UCLA’s reigning NCAA
Championship team, only Kate Richardson returned to elite
gymnastics, making the Canadian Olympic team in the process.
Quite astoundingly, Richardson is the first UCLA gymnast to make
an Olympic team while still competing for UCLA in Kondos
Field’s 14 years of coaching the team
Looking at everything Richardson had to do in order to return to
elite competition, it becomes quite obvious why no other collegiate
gymnast is willing to go that route.
Aside from her normal hours of UCLA training, Richardson would
remain in the gym long after her teammates had dispersed, devoting
herself to additional hours of individual training. She also had to
increase her class load so she wouldn’t fall behind, knowing
that she would need to take spring quarter off from school.
“I would really like to see more college gymnasts compete
at the elite level,” Kondos Field said. “I think a lot
of them could still compete internationally.”
Unfortunately, that may not happen because sometimes it’s
just easier to move on.