Going for gold wasn’t in Elizabeth Price’s plans; Stanford was
For competitors of many different stripes the word over, the call of the Olympics is irresistible.
Yet, though many of her friends and elite gymnasts are pinning their dreams on the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, she’s taking differential calculus for engineers and an engineering mechanics course at Stanford.
Price is the defending champion in the vault and will be a threat for the all-around title this time.
Competing in any Division I sport requires a huge commitment of time, energy and concentration.
For Price, however, it was a big step away from the intensity of her years on the U.S. national team.
Price could have deferred her college entrance to compete in the Olympics.
After serving as an alternate at the London Games in 2012, though, she had other ideas.
[...] that involved putting her heavily stamped passport in a drawer.
[...] after winning the all-around title, the bars and floor exercise at the 2014 Pacific Rim Championships in Canada, she called Marta Karolyi, national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics, and Steve Penny, the organization’s president.
[...] it was my decision, and there was nothing they could do about it.
Like many other elite competitors, Price had been home-schooled since she was in sixth grade.
Considering Price’s concerns about being hurt on the international level, it was strange that she broke her foot on the Farm even before taking her first class.
Prospective engineering students were taking part in a scavenger hunt that lasted into the wee hours.
Because Stanford was loaded on the beam, she didn’t compete for the individual title in that event.
Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
NCAA women’s gymnastics
Twelve teams that qualified in the six regionals are joined by the top two all-around competitors and individual event winners from the regionals who are not on qualifying teams.
Schedule:11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Friday: team semifinals (including Stanford-Auburn at 11 a.m. and Cal-Alabama at 5 p.m.); individual awards will be announced after the 5 p.m. session; 6 p.m. Saturday: