One Stanford gymnast remains on the U.S. Men’s Senior National Team after this weekend’s Winter Cup Challenge in Las Vegas, Nev. Traveling with five of his fellow Cardinal gymnasts, junior co-captain Tim Gentry emerged from the two-day competition with a fifth place finish in the all-around, winning him an automatic berth on the national team.
National team membership is both much-coveted and extremely temporary. Each year, gymnasts have two opportunities to make the national team–the first chance in February at the Winter Cup Challenge and the second in August at the Visa Championship. At each competition, 15 men are selected to represent the US in national and international competition. Ten of those 15 are the gymnasts who earned the greatest number of points in each challenge; the other five are chosen by the Men’s Program Committee or petition. Thus, the makeup of the team essentially changes every six months.
For Gentry, a 2009 national team member, this year’s Winter Cup was filled with a bit more pressure than last year’s competition for that very reason.
“Last August, when I first made the team, there really wasn’t any pressure to perform because no one expected me to make the team,” Gentry said. “This time, the expectations were a little bit higher because I wanted to keep my spot on the team.”
For junior Alex Buscaglia, another 2009 national team member, the pressure was almost too much.
“I put more pressure on myself,” he said. “I didn’t want to let myself down or my coach.”
In the end, though, Buscaglia–who has looked up to the guys on the national team since he was a little kid, flipping and twisting on the mats at his local gym–came just short of the stellar performance he needed to secure a spot on the 2010 team.
In his first day of competition, Buscaglia posted a stellar 16.0 on vault and a solid 14.3 on floor exercise. In the second day of competition, he posted a nice 14.5 on high bar and a decent 15.85 on vault, but flopped with a 9.75 on pommel horse. By hitting just three routines in two days of competition, he placed 15th in the national points system and just missed being named to the national team.
Also traveling with Gentry and Buscaglia to Las Vegas were juniors Josh Dixon and Ryan Lieberman. Both were legitimate contenders for the national team, but had obstacles get in the way of their placements.
Dixon, for example, fell ill over the weekend. Lieberman, on the other hand, had a disappointing first day that was followed by a stellar second day, but had lost too much momentum after his debut to make the national lineup.
In the future, however, Stanford head coach Thom Glielmi says the four juniors are the ones to watch.
“Tim prepared well in practice and delivers in meets…Alex will make the improvements to earn a spot on the team again,” Glielmi said. “Josh was ill, and I was impressed with his ability to get through. These four are definitely the ones to watch, and our plan is to get all of them on the national team.”
Besides the juniors, sophomores Cameron Foreman and John Martin were also present in Las Vegas. For them, the meet was more to gain experience at the elite level than to compete for a spot on the team.
Joining Gentry on the 2010 senior national team are fellow northern Californians Kyle Bunthuwong and Glen Ishino of Cal, as well as 12 other men from universities and gymnastics training centers across the country.