The Red and Black

Issue date: 12/4/07 Section: Sports

Media Credit: FILE PHOTO Junior Courtney Kupets, 2007 NCAA All-Around Champion, has decided to forgo the U.S. Olympic Trials. [Click to enlarge]

Gym Dogs junior Courtney Kupets said she has decided to forgo her bid for the U.S. Olympic Trials, focusing solely on the upcoming NCAA gymnastics season.

Kupets would have been the first American gymnast ever to try out for the Olympics while still in college. Brown University's Alicia Sacramone withdrew from college to continue her Olympic bid. Even in an individual sport such as gymnastics, Kupets stated her decision to nix her Olympic pursuits stemmed from her personal sense of responsibility to her teammates.

"It took away from the team environment," Kupets said. "I was sometimes thinking about the skills I had to do for different routines instead of focusing on cheering for whoever was up on the bar and making sure they were ready as well."

The process of qualifying for the Olympics in gymnastics is different than in other sports, such as swimming and track, as there is a qualification process entirely separate from the collegiate season.

Had she continued with her Olympic aspirations, Kupets would have had to miss at least one meet during the upcoming Gym Dogs slate.

Gym Dogs head coach Suzanne Yoculan said she was aware of and supported Kupets' plan to try out for the Olympic squad, but wishes the process were simpler for college athletes.

"She has the physical and mental ability, but she has to jump through a lot more hoops to make a run for it, and she felt like she had to make a choice."

Yoculan said the decision Kupets reached to focus her attention solely on the Gym Dogs was one the gymnast reached on her own.

"It just got to be too hard for her to balance the two," Yoculan said. "She would really have to live two lives, and there just weren't enough hours in the day for her to be everything to everybody."

With dreams of Beijing behind her, Kupets can turn her attention to leading the Gym Dogs to a fourth consecutive national championship.

"I can now think about this team this year and being built off of what we did in the past and trying to get this team to end up in the same place," Kupets said.

Kupets was a member of the 2004 silver medal-winning Olympic gymnastics team, capturing an individual bronze medal on the uneven bars. She has won two team national championships and five individual national championships in two years with the Gym Dogs.

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