University of Minnesota Athletics
Burns Blog No. 1 From the World Gymnastics Championships
9/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
BURNS BLOG #1
FROM THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
STUTTGART, GERMANY
The USA Men’s Gymnastics team is set to compete on Tuesday, September 4th at 1:00 pm local Stuttgart time. As the University of Minnesota is about to start the 2007-2008 academic year, former Gopher great Guillermo Alvarez and I are both members of the 2007 USA World Championships Gymnastics team. Alvarez is of course one of the athletes while I am one of the assistant coaches for the team.
We arrived on Sunday, August 26th and have been in preparation mode since we arrived. Last Friday was the Podium Training day which is the only day gymnasts get a chance to use the competition equipment which sits on a raised podium. All the judges are on hand to supposedly impress us with their knowledge but as usual, they failed miserably! Actually, some of the best judges in the world are on hand to judge the meet.
Today was day 1 of the men’s competition and 4 of the 8 sub-divisions were held. China holds a commanding lead over 2004 Olympic champs Japan. Russia is currently in 3rd, France is in 4th, Belarus is in 5th and Great Britain is in 6th. The top 8 teams will qualify to the Team Finals which will be held on Thursday and the top 12 teams will qualify to the 2008 Olympic Games. A lot is riding on this competition and the men’s team is ready for the challenge.
After the competition I will send a run-down of how the meet went and hopefully I can wait until the 8th and final sub-division is complete so I can give you a complete re-cap on the men’s team competition. We compete in the 6th sub-division overall and the final one won’t be done until around 10 pm local time (3:00 pm Minnesota time).
Look for more updates from Stuttgart, Germany on the Burns Blog!!
