Justin Spring has been around gymnastics his entire life. Throughout his journey competing at collegiate and Olympic levels and moving into the head coaching role at Illinois, there was one event that’s always been his favorite: the high bar.

He was able to characterize his love for the high bar the most from his Olympics experience, when he saw how Americans were better at the event than most other countries.

“Americans have that X-Games type of ego,” Spring said. “We’re not scared to let go. We’ll take on the big challenge and do some big stuff. We’re risk-takers. Certainly high bar is one of those events that has that appeal.”

The high bar is not for the faint of heart, as the apparatus is nearly 11 feet off the ground, with a high “fall factor,” Spring said. When athletes go to land their dismount, they fall from almost 20 feet up in the air.

Spring said many athletes have a bad experience with the high bar and end up with a lifetime phobia of the event.

Junior Tyler Mizoguchi was one of those athletes, until Spring persuaded him otherwise.

“For me it’s my dreaded event,” Mizoguchi said. “I came here, I hated that event. I would never do it, I never wanted to do it, until I finally got pushed by Justin to really start working and try new skills for it.”

Mizoguchi was scared because once, while performing on it in club, his grip locked on the bar and his body went around the bar but his wrist didn’t move. The accident resulted in a torn ligament, and Mizoguchi vowing to never do the event again.

“Then I came here, and Justin pushed me, and I’m loving it,” Mizoguchi said. “It’s a great event. I love just being up there, it’s a rush that I get every time I’m up on the bar.”

To be good at the high bar, Spring said athletes need to be risk-takers and unafraid.

It’s those qualities which propelled senior Paul Ruggeri to the top of national rankings as one of the best high bar athletes in the world. Ruggeri is currently ranked No. 1 in the country on the event with a score of 15.850, nearly a point above the next competitor.

Ruggeri’s high bar numbers are what the team will miss the most score-wise from the injured senior, Spring said.

His routine was special because it had a high start value with several releases.

On the event, a gymnast is required to release his hands from the bar and then grab it again. These moves require specific and intricate hand movements that most people can’t even see, Spring said.

“Not even the judges can see everything up there, but it looks cool for everyone,” Spring said. “The amount of height and how dynamic it can be and super fast-paced and explosive it can be — it’s one of a kind. We get really high on these release moves that we do and so the element of risk and the fact that you can fall from such a height at any minute is nail-biting.”

Junior C.J. Padera works intense release moves in his routines, which grab the crowd’s attention more than anything else. In the middle of his routine, Padera does a full twist and a double back over the bar.

“After I catch my release moves, I hear the crowd and I know they’re looking at me and it adds incentive to hit,” Padera said. “High bar is one of the most pleasing eye-candy events because people can’t really understand what’s going on. You can let it all out on high bar, you’re not restricted to anything.”

And it’s the crowd thrill that Spring loves most of all, too, as the event catches the audience’s attention more than any other event.

He passed the most exciting part of his routine on to Mizoguchi: his dismount of a triple flip.

“You’re doing it and you’re like, ‘No big deal, I do this every day,’” Mizoguchi said. “But then you see it and you’re like, ‘Yes, I’m 20 feet in the air doing flips and landing,’ it’s unbelievable. Everybody sees it and they’re like, ‘Wow.’ I like my gymnastics to be more unique than everyone else’s.”

Spring thinks it’s dismounts like Mizoguchi’s and the releases on the high bar — which bring such a crowd appeal — that keep athletes doing gymnastics.

“Some people say there’s a screw loose in some of the heads of the guys that do high bar. I don’t think that’s true,” Spring said. “That’s what excited me, that’s what got me excited to do gymnastics. To do something that can bring the crowd into it where they think, ‘That was awesome, I don’t even know what that was, but that was awesome.’”