Men’s Regional Championships

Nicco Blum was our sole competitor in this year’s Men’s Region 1 Championships. Nicco had a great meet. He started out on floor and throughout the meet remained in the middle of the pack. His final event was high bar. Coming off his win at state championships on this event he was very excited to perform here. Nicco was planning on adding an additional skill to his routine to boost his start value. This is a clear hip handstand before his back giants. He has been regularly performing this skill in practice. Unfortunately during warm ups he missed 3 out of 4 of this combination, and time was up. We discussed the options and wanted to give him the best shot at standing on the podium at regionals, which was going to be doing the best he can on high bar. Given that there were no safety issues we decided he should go for the combination. Unfortunately there was an injury on floor at the end of warm up and the meet got delayed. This was a difficult situation for the boys as they were concerned about the injured athlete, and unsure of what came next.

The meet staff handled the situation very well, and the athlete was well cared for. He ended up walking off the floor under his own support. I do not have any updates on his condition.

The boys were allowed a “1 touch” warm up on their final event. Nicco again attempted the clear hip to giant, but missed it again. We decided he would go for it anyway. During his routine he hit. Scoring a 9.2 on high bar, and taking 4th place on the event at regionals. A fantastic way to end out the season!