The 2023 NCAA season will open with the Super 16 invitational at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on January 6 and 7. The largest college invitational in memory will feature about 300 gymnasts from teams in the Big Ten, Big 12, EAGL, MRGC, Pac-12 and SEC. Fisk will also open its inaugural season at the event.
Presented in four sessions over two days, the Super 16 will crown four team champions. Fisk, Georgia, North Carolina, Oregon State, Rutgers, Southern Utah, Stanford and Washington will compete on Friday, January 6 while Arizona State, Auburn, BYU, California, Iowa, Michigan, Oklahoma and UCLA will compete Saturday, January 7. Further session information is yet to be announced.
GymCats—a legendary developmental program in Las Vegas that brought up Tasha and Jordan Schwikert, as well as Kailin Chio—is hosting the event. Club owner Mike Rice is an experienced event planner, with NFL halftime shows on his resume. Two GymCats alumnae, Selena Harris and Shylen Murakami, will be competing with UCLA and Southern Utah, respectively.
Jill Preston, team coach at GymCats, has been charged with coordinating the gymnastics-specific logistics of the event, managing the moving parts for all 16 teams attending. For her, the invitational is both a culmination of years of professional relationships in the sport, as well as a chance for her current athletes—and other gymnasts in the Las Vegas metro—to watch college gymnastics close to home.
Nevada does not have a collegiate team in-state. The closest programs are in Arizona, California and Utah. Still, the state is a gymnastics powerhouse, not only thanks to the success of GymCats, but also teams like Brown’s and Deltchev, which together have produced numerous college gymnasts.
“It’s such an honor that a meet of this caliber is being held here,” Preston said by email. She noted that three Tokyo Olympians—Jade Carey, Suni Lee and Jordan Chiles—will be competing.
Las Vegas is reemerging as a sports destination. To Preston, the recent growth began when the NHL’s Golden Knights came to the city in 2017. “Having these sports teams and big events emerge has really brought a sense of community to the Valley,” she said.
The city is no stranger to high-profile women’s sports. Its WNBA team the Aces brought in lauded coach Becky Hammon last year and won the 2022 championship. The Aces brought a championship parade to the Strip, underscoring Las Vegas’ status as an entertainment and sports mecca.
Preston has watched as women’s gymnastics has grown recently, with the addition of four teams in two years. “We would love to see a college team here in Nevada,” she said.
Fans can learn more about the Super 16 on the event’s website or at @super16gym on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Tickets go on sale today, Monday December 12.
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Article by Emily Minehart
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Would love to be able to watch these sessions, especially #4 (my grand daughter is in #4 session tonight). I have spent two days trying to find a place to watch these meets, but I can not even watch ony phone. So disappointed in the coverage, I did not even see results on the meet website, just sending me to a meet result website that hardly was catching up on the meets and also charging for results!
Hello! You can watch the meet on the Big Ten Network. The scores on meetscoresonline are actually free, but the site can be very confusing!