COLORADO SPRINGS — Vitaly Marinitch grew up in a different gymnastics system, and he knows the American men he coaches won’t have the same experience he did in the Soviet Union.
But Marinitch, the U.S. resident program head coach, thinks they’re close. By choice, a bulk of the men’s national team has moved to live and train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center and created a de facto, pseudo-centralized system.
It’s not the same as Marinitch had when he moved away from home at 14 to train around 250 days a year. It was a sacrifice, but one that culminated in team gold for the Soviet Union at the 1989 world championships.