University of Minnesota Athletics
Burns Blog: With Guillermo in Japan
11/17/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
In the first day of the 2008 Toyota Cup in Toyota City, Japan, former Golden Gopher gymnast Guillermo Alvarez finished in third place and captured the bronze medal on the Floor Exercise. The competition from the Japanese gymnasts was tough with 2008 Olympians Makoto Okiguchi and Kohei Uchimura finishing just ahead of Guillermo in first and second place respectively. Okiguchi posted a score of 15.75 and Uchimura posted a score of 15.70 while Guillermo posted a score of 15.50.
Kohei Uchimura was the Silver medalist in the All-Around at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and Makoto Okiguchi was also a member of the Silver Medal Japanese Olympic team.
Guillermo was up against some very tough competition and did a great job in his first competition since the Olympic Trials back in June in Philadelphia. He was able to stay ahead of two Olympians from the Romanian team in a tough field of heavily experienced competitors. This is one of the best routines I have seen Guillermo perform and it shows that he is still a world class gymnast on floor exercise.
Guillermo also competed on the pommel horse where he finished in 8th place with a score of 14.30. This was a very strong field of gymnasts on pommel horse. 2007 European Champion Krisztian Berki of Hungary won the gold medal with a score of 15.50 with Daniel Popescu of Romania finishing second with a 15.40 and Weiyang Guo of China finished third with a score of 15.25.
This was a great opportunity for Guillermo to get back into the international scene and realize that he is still in top form even the ripe old age of 26!
The meet concluded on Sunday with the last three events. Guillermo competed on Parallel Bars while fellow American Steve Legendre competed on Vault, Parallel Bars and High Bar.
-UM-
