Two Boise State gymnasts using collegiate season as springboard to 2020 Olympic bids
Isabella Amado and Courtney McGregor have two major goals on the calendar in 2019 — qualify for the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics National Championships and the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Both women will hone the skills necessary to reach those goals while members of the Boise State gymnastics team, which is set to make its 12th consecutive appearance at regionals this weekend.
Amado and McGregor represented their respective countries — Panama and New Zealand — at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero, but the Broncos never have qualified for the national meet as a team.
Having already overcome the nerves associated with international competition at the highest level, Amado and McGregor could provide a sense of calm to their teammates as the Broncos chase history.
“They’re used to anything,” Boise State co-head coach Tina Bird said. “… Those two, you can throw them in any situation and they don’t get rattled.”
The NCAA changed the format for regionals this year, switching from a single day of competition at six sites to multiple days of gymnastics at four sites. The number of teams advancing to nationals dropped from 12 to eight.
“We’ve been preparing for that in the gym, doing two hard days in a row,” McGregor said. “We’ve been doing that for months now. I think we’re really excited, because we’re a consistent team, so the two-day format is going to be good for us.”
The 12th-ranked Broncos begin competition at 3 p.m. MT on Friday at the NCAA Corvallis Regional at Oregon State’s Gill Coliseum.
Boise State faces No. 5 Denver, No. 18 Washington and No. 24 Southern Utah in the first session, while No. 4 Florida, No. 15 Oregon State and No. 25 Stanford square off in the second session. On Thursday, Arizona and Iowa compete in a dual meet to determine which team earns the last spot in the second session.
The top two teams from each session Friday will advance to the final on Saturday. The top two teams from Saturday’s final move on to the national meet April 19-20 in Fort Worth, Texas.
“We’ve tried to simulate what we’re going to have to do,” Boise State co-head coach Neil Resnick said. “I also feel like the threshold of desire is so high. Desire helps you overcome just about anything, so I think that also is going to play a big role.”
The Broncos are familiar with all three of their first-round competitors. They beat Washington on March 1 and conference foe Southern Utah on three different occasions. Boise State lost to Denver on Feb. 24 in the same tri-meet where senior Shani Remme suffered a season-ending ACL tear in her left knee.
Despite losing the program’s winningest gymnast in the all-around and on beam, the Broncos’ No. 12 ranking is the highest in school history entering regionals.
“That says we’re resilient, and I think that is what’s going to push us through in the second day (at regionals),” Amado said. “We thrive in adversity.”
Once their collegiate season is over, juniors Amado and McGregor will turn their focus to Olympic qualifying. Amado will try to earn an Olympic spot with Panama by competing at the Pan American Games, which begin July 26 in Lima, Peru. McGregor, a native of Christchurch, New Zealand, will try to qualify at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in October in Stuttgart, Germany. Former Boise State teammate Sandra Collantes, who wrapped up her Bronco career in 2018 and is now a volunteer assistant coach, is also training in hopes of representing Peru at the Tokyo Games in 2020.
“There’s team qualifying criteria, and once they take out the people who have qualified with a team, then there’s a certain number of individuals from your all-around score who get in,” McGregor said. “It’s really hard to calculate or predict (how many) that will be right now, but that’s how I qualified for Rio.”
Collegiate gymnastics values perfection, while international competition is difficulty based, meaning all three gymnasts will have to alter the routines they performed as Broncos.
“College has to be perfect. It’s based on execution,” Amado said. “Elite is more on difficulty, so once we start adding more skills, because we’ve focused so much on executing so well, it’ll translate and hopefully give us an edge.”
At the Rio Games, McGregor finished 41st in the all-around with a 53.165 and Amado was 44th with a 52.832. McGregor’s best event came on vault, where she placed 13th with a 14.533, just five spots short of advancing to the final.
McGregor won the all-around title at the Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference Championship on March 22 in Provo, Utah, and ranks No. 28 in the nation in the all-around, according to RoadtoNationals.com.
“I think the main thing that’s helped Courtney through college is learning how to compete. We compete every single week for 13 weeks in a row. That’s not something that she’d ever been exposed to,” Bird said. “Not only is she a great gymnast and talented and all that, but now she really knows how to compete well. She’s gotten better every year here, so I can only imagine how that’s going to help her internationally.”
Patton to join ITA hall of fame
Former Boise State men’s tennis coach Greg Patton will be inducted into the ITA Men’s Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame on May 19 in Orlando, Florida.
“Saint Peter has just welcomed me through the Pearly Gates of Tennis,” Patton said in a press release. “I owe this heavenly award to all of my patron saints who are my supportive family, the gifted student athletes, and my athletic department brethren at UCSB, Cal State Bakersfield, UC Irvine and primarily Boise State. They have illuminated and graced my calling in collegiate coaching.”
Patton retired from Boise State in May of 2018 after 22 seasons at the helm. He is already a member of the Boise State Athletics Hall of Fame and was named the NCAA National Coach of the Year in 1997. Patton also earned ITA Regional Coach of the Year honors five times (1994, 1997, 2004, 2012 and 2014).
At the time of his retirement, Patton’s 808 career victories were the most of any active collegiate coach in the nation. His teams won 24 conference tournament championships and appeared at the NCAA Tournament 21 times, including 16 with Boise State.
Patton collected numerous honors throughout his 37-year coaching career. The two-time recipient of the USTA/NCAA National Community Service Award (1997, 2003) is enshrined in the hall of fame for the Idaho Tennis Association (2013), USTA Intermountain Region (2015) and UC Irvine (2000). Patton also was honored with the USTA Intermountain Tennis Association Lifetime Achievement Award and was given the Keys to the City of Boise.
This story was originally published April 4, 2019 at 10:08 AM.
