Gymnast Bishop Advances to Three NCAA Event Finals

April 23, 1999

NORMAN, Okla. - The University of Oklahoma's Todd Bishop qualified for Saturday's NCAA Men's Gymnastics Individual Championships in three events last night in Lincoln, Neb. Bishop, a senior, will compete on the pommel horse, parallel bars and horizontal bar after finishing in the top eight in each event at Thursday's individual event preliminaries. Also competing Saturday in the floor exercise will be OU sophomore Steve Van Etten.

Bishop, honored with the Nissen-Emery Award Wednesday night as the country's top senior male collegiate gymnast, won the horizontal bar preliminary with a 9.95. He also tied for sixth on the pommel horse (9.70) and seventh on the parallel bars (9.70). Van Etten tied for first place in the floor exercise with a 9.80.

Also competing but failing to advance for the Sooners Thursday night were Huy Ly on the pommel horse (8.950 -- 41st), Matt Schoen on the still rings (9.50 -- 24th), Van Etten on the vault (9.60 -- 17th), Brendan O'Neil on the parallel bars (9.550 -- 16th) and Everette Bierker on the parallel bars (9.30 -- 31st).

The NCAA Men's Gymnastics Individual Championships will begin at 7 p.m. Saturday at Nebraska's Bob Devaney Center.

Last year, Bishop won the horizontal bar national title with a 9.9375.