This season marks the 25h Anniversary of the Ivy League Women’s Gymnastic Championship.
Only problem for the women’s gymnastic teams of Brown, Cornell, Pennsylvania and Yale is that the sport no longer qualifies for an Ancient Eight title because a sport must have five Ivy schools competing to have a league title.
It may be the only women’s sport in the conference which has been stripped of a championship once it had one.
But do not think that makes this weekend’s Ivy Classic at Yale any less important to the four schools competing.
“It’s always big,” Cornell head coach Paul Beckwith said. “I don’t know how they can say the winner of this is not the Ivy champion.”
On top of the gymnastic action, Beckwith said there is a banquet held for the competitors, and even though it is not an official Ivy championship, the teams treat it as one.
As it is an important meet, the Red will have to overcome the injuries on the squad. After a laundry list of injuries to start the season, Beckwith’s squad will now have to deal with the restricted services of Abby Vedder, who can now only compete on the uneven bars.
However, Beckwith remains very optimistic about his team’s chances this weekend.
“Everybody has had a meet [where they scored] lower than us, and everyone has had a meet [where they scored] higher than us,” the coach said.
When analyzing the teams in the meet, Beckwith spots Yale as the favorite, since it defeated Penn earlier this season.
The Quakers defeated the Red in a head-to-head match earlier this year.
Brown is something of an unknown coming into the event, since it has not competed in the past two weekends.
“I think it is going to boil down to who has the best day and who is healthy,” he said.
Archived article by J.V. Anderton