Wes Suter

Last updated
Wes Suter
Full nameKenneth Wesley Suter
Country represented United States
Born (1964-05-23) May 23, 1964 (age 60)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Height178 cm (5 ft 10 in)
Weight73 kg (161 lb)
Discipline Men's artistic gymnastics
College team Nebraska Cornhuskers

Kenneth Wesley Suter (born May 23, 1964) is a retired American gymnast. He was a member of the United States men's national artistic gymnastics team and competed in the 1988 Olympics. [1]

Suter was a highly decorated high school gymnast in Virginia in the early 80s. Describing Suter's intensity, his coach Bob Grauman remarked: [1]

I have never in all of my years of coaching, and I coached for 32 years, have never met an individual with fire in the belly to perform at a high level. Whether it was practice, warm-ups or a meet, he had that killer instinct and wanted to win.

Suter went on to compete at the University of Nebraska, where he was part of the 1983 National Champion team. In 1985, he was the NCAA all-around champion and also won gold on high bar and floor. Suter was awarded the Nissen Award (the "Heisman" of gymnastics) in 1986. [2]

Suter's younger brother Richard was also a competitive gymnast. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yelena Davydova</span> Russian-Canadian gymnast and gymnastics coach

Yelena Viktorovna Davydova is a Russian-Canadian gymnastics coach and judge who competed for the former Soviet Union. She was the women's artistic individual all-around champion at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. She's the owner and head coach at Gemini Gymnastics, a gymnastics club in Oshawa, Ontario. In July 2012, Davydova was one of the coaches of the Canadian Women's Artistic Gymnastics Team. In 2016 Davydova was head floor judge at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different apparatuses. The sport is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which assigns the Code of Points used to score performances and regulates all aspects of elite international competition. Within individual countries, gymnastics is regulated by national federations such as British Gymnastics and USA Gymnastics. Artistic gymnastics is a popular spectator sport at many competitions, including the Summer Olympic Games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Hamm</span> American Olympic Artistic Gymnast (born 1982)

Paul Elbert Hamm is a retired American artistic gymnast and member of the United States men's national artistic gymnastics team. He is the 2004 Olympic all-around champion, a three-time Olympic medalist, and the 2003 World all-around champion. Hamm is the most successful American male gymnast in history, one of only two American gymnasts to win the all-around title at both the Olympics and the World Championships, and the only male American gymnast to do so.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Béla Károlyi</span> Romanian-American gymnastics coach

Béla Károlyi is an ethnic Hungarian Romanian-American gymnastics coach. Early in his coaching career he developed the Romanian centralised training system for gymnastics. One of his earliest protégés was Nadia Comăneci, the first Olympic Games gymnast to be awarded a perfect score. Living under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Károlyi frequently clashed with Romanian officials. He and his wife defected to the United States in 1981.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valeri Liukin</span> Kazakh-American gymnast

Valeri Viktorovich Liukin is a Kazakh-American retired artistic gymnast currently working as a gymnastics coach. Representing the former Soviet Union, Liukin was the 1988 Olympic champion in the team competition and individually on the horizontal bar, and Olympic silver medalist in the all-around and the parallel bars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justin Spring</span> American artistic gymnast

Justin Edward Spring is a retired American gymnast. He is a member of the bronze medal winning U.S. team at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. He was also a top gymnast in NCAA competition, where he represented the University of Illinois.

Abraham Israel "Abie" Grossfeld is an American gymnastics coach and former gymnast. Grossfeld represented the United States as a gymnast for 15 consecutive years in 35 countries as a member of 26 international United States men's national artistic gymnastics teams including the Olympic Games, World Championships, and Pan American Games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newt Loken</span>

Newton C. Loken was an artistic gymnast and coach of gymnastics, trampolining and cheerleading. While a member of the Minnesota Golden Gophers men's gymnastics team, Loken was NCAA all-around gymnastics champion in 1942 and the Big Ten Conference all-around champion in 1941 and 1942. He was the coach of the University of Michigan gymnastics team for 36 years from 1948-1983. Loken's gymnasts won the NCAA championships in 1963 and 1970, as well as 12 Big Ten championships. His record as Michigan's gymnastics coach was 250-72-1. Loken also coached the Michigan trampolining team to NCAA championships in 1969 and 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivan Ivankov</span> Belarusian artistic gymnast

Ivan Ivankov is a retired Belarusian artistic gymnast. Ivankov; a very big name in the gymnastics world, which he earned throughout years of competition and hard work. The 1994 and 1997 all-around World Champion, and the 1994 and 1996 all-around European Champion, Ivankov has competed for over a decade on the international circuit. Despite his numerous achievements at the World Championships, Europeans and other events, Ivankov has suffered a string of misfortunes at the Olympics, and has never won an Olympic medal. He had to share a third place with another competitor, after which, the bronze Olympic medal wasn’t given to him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kōhei Uchimura</span> Japanese gymnast (born 1989)

Kōhei Uchimura is a retired Japanese artistic gymnast. He is a seven-time Olympic medalist, winning three golds and four silvers, and a 21-time World medalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danell Leyva</span> Cuban-American gymnast (born 1991)

Danell Johan Leyva is a Cuban American former gymnast who competed for the United States. He is the 2012 Olympic individual all-around bronze medalist and 2016 Olympic parallel bars and horizontal bar silver medalist. He is also the 2011 US national all-around gold medalist and the 2011 world champion on the parallel bars. With a combined total of 8 Olympic and World Championships medals, Leyva is the second most decorated American male gymnast after Paul Hamm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyla Ross</span> American artistic gymnast

Kyla Briana Ross is a retired American artistic gymnast and current assistant coach for the Arkansas Razorbacks gymnastics team. She is the first female gymnast to win NCAA, World, and Olympic championship titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Brooks (gymnast)</span> American gymnast

Christopher Brooks is a retired American gymnast who represented the United States at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. He is now assistant coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks NCAA gymnastics team. He won four gold medals at the 2012 Pacific Rim Championships. He has trained alongside Olympic and World Championships medalist Jonathan Horton as a junior, college and senior elite gymnast. On August 17, 2017, he announced his retirement from artistic gymnastics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Mikulak</span> American artistic gymnast

Samuel Anthony Mikulak is a retired American artistic gymnast. He is a six-time U.S. national all-around champion, the 2018 World bronze medalist on high bar, and a three-time Olympian. He is also an eight-time NCAA champion, winning the team, individual all-around and several individual event titles at the 2011, 2013 and 2014 NCAA Men's Gymnastics championships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oleg Verniaiev</span> Ukrainian artistic gymnast

Oleg Yuriyovych Verniaiev is a Ukrainian artistic gymnast. He is the 2016 Olympic parallel bars champion and individual all-around silver medalist. Verniaiev is also the 2014 World parallel bars champion, the 2015 European individual all-around champion and the 2017 European individual all-around champion.

James Hartung is a retired American gymnast. He was a member of the United States men's national artistic gymnastics team and won a gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Jamie Natalie is a retired American gymnast. He was a highly decorated college gymnast, achieving the 2001 Nissen-Emery Award and a two-time individual all-around national champion. He was a member of the United States men's national artistic gymnastics team and in 2000 the USOC named two lower-ranked gymnasts to the Olympic team and named Jamie as the alternate. The USOC's attempt to send a message was widely derided and became the subject of continuing scrutiny. In fact, the "backroom" dealings and secretive process that resulted in what was widely considered to be punitive action, exposed the US Olympic coaches' biases to nationwide embarrassment and shame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikita Nagornyy</span> Russian artistic gymnast

Nikita Vladimirovich Nagornyy is a Russian artistic gymnast and two-time Olympian, representing Russia in 2016 and ROC in 2020. He was part of the teams who won gold at the 2020 Olympic Games and 2019 World Championships and silver at the 2016 Olympic Games and 2018 World Championships.

Francis Allen was head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers men's gymnastics team from 1969 to 2009. Those 40 years make him the longest tenured head coach in the history of Nebraska Cornhuskers athletics. He has coached his men's gymnastics team to eight NCAA National Championship titles. He was the head coach for two Men's Olympic Gymnastics Teams and coached nine gymnasts who competed in the Olympics.

Paul Wojciech Juda is an American artistic gymnast. He is a member of the U.S. men's national team. He was a member of the bronze medal-winning team at the 2023 World Championships and the bronze medal-winning team at the 2024 Olympic Games. He was also a two-time silver medalist at the 2021 Pan American Championships. In NCAA Gymnastics, he competes for the Michigan Wolverines, where he has won five Big Ten titles and three individual NCAA championships.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Koubaroulis, BJ (15 August 2006). "#15, Wes Suter, South Lakes Gymnastics, 1982: Former Olympian was a pioneer in men's gymnastics, won 15 state titles". Great Falls Connection.
  2. "Thisisnebraska".