Championships of the USN.MEN (Con't) through the routines with fair control and both scored 9.3 points to place 2nd and 3rd. Although I could see the considerable improvement on the pommel horse as whole in the last few years, we must realize this event is still by far the weakest event of all. There are 28 gymnasts (70%) who scored below 9.0 points. These statistics prove that we need to put more of a concerted effort on improving this event as a nation. There were many good routines in the ring finals. Again, Jim Hartung who had a marginable lead in the preliminary competitions did an excellent job finishing his routine with Yi in-Yi out in piked positions scoring a 9. 7 to win the event. Casey Edwards displayed a good mixture of strength and swings throughout his routine scoring the 2nd highest with a 9.6 finishing in 2nd place. The following three gymnasts Peter Vidmar, Larry Gerard, and Breck Grigas received a very high average score of 9.55 with good routines but Peter Vidmar had the highest preliminary score of 9.475 to take 3rd place. As far as looking at the scores on rings, it is very impressive and it appears that rings is one of the strong events. However, when looking from the international view point I have always felt that our gymnasts are not quite physically strong enough overall. Our swing technique in general is fairly good when we combine the swing and the strength aspects, the physical weakness becomes very apparent especially at the international levels of competition. A total of 20 gymnasts (50%) out of 40 participants scored below 9.0 in the compulsory exercises. Obviously the compulsory exercises requires more general strength to be well executed so the low average scores should be a good indication of our weakness, specifically the aspect of strength. Since the innovative invention of the vaulting board, we have seen a tremendous improvement in the vaulting skills. The improvement of the board also affected the average gymnast more, helping him to attain a higher level of skill, typically "a handspring front vault. " The most difficult vault ever attempted in this country is the full twisting layout Taskahara by Ron Galimore and the handspring front l Yi twist by Jim Hartung, who has not been able to successfully execute it in a meet yet. A striking fact is that more than 90% of the gymnasts excluding the gymnasts who used the Tuskahara type vault, were capable of doing a handspring front or better vault. At the vaulting event finals again, Ron Galimore out scored everyone with a beautiful full twisting la yout Tuskahara and also one without a twist averaging a score of 9.825 to capture the title very easily. The very powerful Casey Edwards attempted a handspring front and Quervo (handspring Yi backout) with very good technique scoring a 9.55 to take 2nd place. This year's newcomer, Percy Price from Houston Baptist University attempted also a beautiful handspring piked front and handspring full twist with very nice amplitude scoring an average of 9.55 points to take 3rd place. Phil Cahoy who is very tall but very dynamic in swing events, displayed his strength in the parallel finals. His refined technical execution on swing made his body line look even longer and he went all out to capture the highest score of 9.7 to win this event. Another dynamic swing was
Phil Cahoy displayed by Ron Galimore who already captured the crown in 2 events, the floor exercise and vault, aggressively finishing with a piked double back scored 9.5 points to take 2nd place. A very good effort was put out by Casey Edwards scoring 9.5 points 2nd highest in this event but not good enough to beat Larry Gerard who displayed excellent compulsory routines in the preliminary competition out scored Casey Edwards with a combined total to capture 3rd place. The last event, horizontal bar was also an excellent competition among the top finishers . The highlight of the event is very obviously the big release moves, which are very well executed among the top finishers. The most spectacular routine was thrown by Phil Cahoy who had executed a ''piked front salto regrasp" from an inverted fiant with an excellent amplitude scoring 9.80 points which was the highest point scored for this event. However, due to his low preliminary score, he had to settle for 3rd place. Second highest score, 9. 75, was shared by Peter Vidmar and Jim Hartung who also executed a big release move successfully "front salto regrasp" and "straddled hecht vault" respectively. The first place was awarded to Jim Hartung who had preliminary score with excellent compulsory routine in th e previous competition. All in all, the competition was very exciting and all the spectators witnessed many excellent routines, even though we were missing our top two gymnasts in the country. Gymnastics News-May/ June 1980
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