Yoshi Mori placed third in the all-around on Saturday at the Windy City Invitational while still suffering from an unknown injury to his back. Mori has had more than one injury during the preseason, causing him to miss the first meet of his final season as an Illini.

Without practicing the all-around format before this past weekend, he showed a consistent performance and was awarded third place and first place on his speciality, the pommel horse. Mori is still battling with small injuries and has a lot of work to do before reaching his full potential this season. 

“My only main focus is endurance,” Mori said. “When everyone else was doing routines, I was doing rehab or only parts of sequences rather than a full set. Now that I’m starting to get healthy again, I need more numbers under my belt so that I can get my endurance up.”

Adjusting to a new format

This season the NCAA approved a new format for men’s gymnastics that will go into effect in March. The format will now be a five-up, five-count instead of the six-up, four-count that was competed last season. To allow for a smoother transition, men’s gymnastics teams around the country are temporarily competing a six-up, five-count. This still allows for one missed routine but puts more pressure on the gymnasts in the lineup.

“The mind-set now is that you have to finish your routine,” senior Vince Smurro said. “You are going up to the event knowing that you are going to count. Now it’s just a practice, but come after March 1 with the five-up, five-count, you are counting. If you do make a mistake, which everyone will at some point, then you finish the routine because there will be a lot of teams making mistakes.”

No longer risk for reward

The new format creates a problem for Illinois head coach Justin Spring when putting together starting lineups. Now that every routine performed by the Illini will count toward the team score in March, consistency is key. Spring now has an almost fully healthy roster of gymnasts to choose from, so the competition among teammates has risen.

“These big routines that have high costs but possibly a high reward at the end, if they aren’t hitting regularly, they aren’t going to make it into lineup,” Spring said. “Where all last year you had the luxury to drop a couple of scores and it’s OK. I think picking lineups all year will be difficult.” 

Practice setting turns into competition setting

Once the new format is in place, risks are less likely to be taken. Those who don’t have consistent, difficult routines will no longer get the opportunity to gain experience competing during a meet. This could cause problems for the future if the younger gymnasts don’t get real competition experience. Spring’s solution is to create a practice atmosphere that feels like a real competition.

“The guy that’s just out of lineup that would maybe be sixth, he’s not going to get that opportunity to raise his hand in front of a judge in a real meet,” Spring said. “Some of the opportunities to get that experience are going to be lost, so we’re going to have to put a lot more pressure in practice. Trying to recreate a competition setting to still give these guys the opportunity to improve themselves to be in lineup.”

Gina can be reached at [email protected] and @muelle30.