Gymnast Lance Ringnald: Iowa Time Machine June 13, 1970

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On June 13, 1970, American Gymnast Lance Ringnald was born in Des Moines.

At just 18, he made the 1988 U.S. Olympic team, becoming the youngest male member of a U.S. Olympic team in 20 years. At the Seoul Olympics, he reached the all-around final and placed 35th, a result that still marked him as one of the country’s top young gymnasts.

He competed on the U.S. men’s World Team in 1989, continued to win major titles, and in 1990 achieved one of his best international results at the Goodwill Games, earning a gold medal on the horizontal bar and bronze medals in the all-around and parallel bars. He won U.S. titles on vault and high bar in 1990 and, in 1991, defended his high bar title, showing that his strength on the high bar remained world-class.

A serious injury complicated Ringnald’s path to the 1992 Olympics, but he still managed to stay connected to the Olympic team. In 1991, he suffered a torn chest muscle in his pectoralis major, one of the few injuries of his career that required surgery, and it happened only ten months before the Olympics. Despite the injury, he made the 1992 Olympic team as an alternate, a result he was grateful for, and later competed at the 1992 Games in Barcelona. He was a member of the U.S. men’s World Championship team again in 1991 and 1993, making him a veteran of three World Championships (1989, 1991, 1993) and a two-time Olympian. #Iowa #OTD #History #Olympics #Gymnastics