2003 Season Previews


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										The Road to Lincoln



Women's 2003 NCAAs

The 2003 Women's NCAA Gymnastics season is upon us, and this year promises to be one of the most competitive and unpredictable in history. Last year, Alabama captured the national crown, led by a core of talented and experienced gymnasts. They edged another experienced squad in Georgia by just 0.275 of a point, surpassing two time defending champion UCLA in the process.

These teams and many others will battle to earn one of 12 spots in Lincoln, Nebraska this April. Since the NCAA began sponsoring the Championships, only four teams have captured the National Title. Will 2003 see the crowning of a new champion? Will Jamie Dantzscher retain her 2002 All-Around crown? Hang on for what promises to be a wild ride.

In 2003, SEC rivals Bama and UGA will see the emergence of their future stars in some of the most talented freshman classes since, well, UCLA's freshman class of 2001. The rising level of talent in the elite and Junior Olympic programs has created a tremendous wave of parity throughout the country. This increasing parity is creating an tight race for the final 12 team slots at Nationals. Just as it will be difficult to predict the National champion, it is equally difficult to pinpoint the 12 teams that will quality to Nationals.

An obvious big change impacting this season is the introduction of the new Vaulting Table. Already in preseason training reports we are seeing the impact of this new apparatus. Many athletes are now training Round Off entry (Yurchenko, Khorkina/Podkapaeva, Luconi) and Tsukahara entry (1/4 to 1/2 on) vaults instead of the handspring entry vaults that were so common in the past. This new piece of equipment, combined with the rising level of talent, means many more teams will be capable of fielding six 10.0 Start Value vaults. This level of depth was the competitive advantage of a few select teams the past few seasons.

2002 NCAA All-Around Champion Jamie Dantzscher of UCLA
Photo (c) Copyright 2002 Heather Maynez. Used with permission. Click for larger version.

ASU
Iowa
LSU
Stanford
Washington

Alabama
Auburn
Ball State
Bowling Green
Cal (pdf file)
CSUS
CMU
Denver
Georgia
GWU
JMU
Kent State
Kentucky
LSU
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan St
Missouri
Nebraska
North Carolina
North Carolina St
Oklahoma update
Oregon State
Rhode Island
Rutgers
SUU
Towson
Utah
Washington (Media)
WVU
Yale

A more subtle change has occurred to the Uneven Bars and Balance Beam. Last season, changes in the way judges evaluate compositional requirements affected the choice of dismounts on UB and BB. This season, new compositional requirements for releases on UB ("not to the level of the competition") have been added. Added to last season's increased emphasis on handstands, dismounts and completion of turns, UB has the potential to be problematic. With Nationals qualification slots and National Titles being decided by tenths of a point, teams will be wary of leaving tenths on the table in each routine.

The Season Previews in this section give a more detailed look at each team. These are linked at the right. The Top 25 Teams from last season were profiled earlier this fall in the Capsule Previews. Also provided are links to various official Season Previews published by the schools. These links will take you to external web sites maintained by the schools themselves.

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