Jan. 31, 2006

Five members of the No. 4 Cardinal Men's Gymnastics squad will compete at the 2006 Winter Cup in Las Vegas, NV this Thursday and Saturday. Six new National Team members will be named after the competition, based upon rank order from the combined all-around scores of both sessions. Alex Schorsch, Dylan Carney, Jason Shen, Sho Nakamori and David Sender will all travel to Las Vegas to compete against the nation's best.

Over 80 gymnasts will compete in two sessions this weekend, with the top six all-around finishers qualifying automatically to the U.S. National Team. The next six spots will be decided by a point system awarding gymnasts for top finishes in individual events. Event specialists will have the opportunity to make a bid for the team based upon strong individual event finishes.

Sender and Shen will compete in the all-around competition at the Winter Cup. Sender is currently ranked fifth nationally in the all-around among college gymnasts, while Shen is ranked 15th in the all-around. Nakamori qualified for the Winter Cup all-around, but will compete only on the floor exercise.

Carney will compete on the floor exercise, vault and high bar in Las Vegas. Carney is currently ranked 15th collegiately for the floor exercise, 18th for the vault and 17th for the high bar. Schorsch is slated to compete on the still rings this weekend. He leads the team with a score of 9.650 on the rings at the Stanford Open and is tied for eighth in the nation.

Stanford graduate David Durante ('02) will contend for the Winter Cup title again in 2006. Durante finished first last year in the Winter Cup all-around competition with a score of 53.815. He also finished third last summer at the U.S. National meet behind Sender.

The entire Cardinal squad will compete next at home versus California on Saturday, February 11 (7:00 pm).