March 3, 2008

STANFORD, Calif. - Senior David Sender and redshirt junior Sho Nakamori are currently in Doha, Qatar preparing to compete in the World Cup A Artistic Gymnastics Championships beginning on March 4 at the country's brand new Aspire Dome. The two, who are currently members of the Senior Men's National Gymnastics team, are preparing to make their final bids for a spot on the 2008 Olympic squad that will travel to Beijing, China later this year.

The World Cup event, the first of six in the 2008 Olympic year, is an events only competition, and there is no all-around championship. Both Cardinal gymnasts will compete in floor exercise and parallel bars, while Sender will also compete in still rings and vault and Nakamori will participate in pommel horse and horizontal bar.

In the first year that the NCAA has adopted the new FIG scoring system, Sender currently has two NCAA-leading high scores in still rings (16.350) and vault (16.350). He has an outright claim to the still rings score, while he shares the top honors in vault with Temple's Scott Bloomfield. Nakamori currently holds a team best on parallel bars with 15.600. Both have outstanding gymnastics pedigrees and have won many All-American honors in their time at Stanford, as well as being named members of the National Team at least twice.

In all 138 gymnasts (109 men and 29 women) from 38 federations are taking part in the World Cup event in Doha. Many of the world's top gymnasts will be competing, including Dmitriy Gogotov, Sergey Khorokhordin, and Aleksander Balandin of Russia, Razvan Selariu and Ilie Popescu of Romania, Danny Pinheiro-Rodrigues of France, World Silver medalist Prashanth Sellathurai and World Gold medalist Philippe Rizzo of Australia, World silver medalists Makoto Okiguchi and Takuya Nakase, and Olympic Silver medalist and world gold medalist Hiroyuki Tomita from Japan , Matteo Morandi and Andrea Coppdino from Italy, Olympic Gold Medalist Dimosthenis Tampakos of Greece, multi World and Olympic medalist Jordan Jovtchev of Bulgaria, and Yuri Van Gelder from the Netherlands.

Stay tuned to goStanford.com for results (when available) from the tournament.

Following the World Cup event, Sender and Nakamori will complete their college season in mid-April and continue training in preparation for the Visa USA National Championships, and the 2008 Olympic trials.