Justin Spring — Olympic Bronze, A...
Justin Spring — Olympic Bronze, Alabama Gymnastics, and the Recipe for Excellence

Fingerprints on Medals by Ralph Reiff

Episode notes

2008 Olympic bronze medalist and Alabama women's gymnastics Associate Head Coach Justin Spring joins Ralph Reiff and Scott Hudson to retrace the injuries most fans never understood — the 2007 ACL tear, a torn ankle deltoid ligament four months before Beijing, and an L4–L5 disc flare two weeks before Olympic Trials — and how he still hit team finals. Justin then flips to today: the freshman-to-college gap, the identity statement he repeated on the podium during Jonathan Horton's high-bar routine, Alabama's three-prong return-to-play standard, and why excellence isn't a microwave. Recorded in Broad Ripple, Indianapolis.

Keywords
Justin Spring, Alabama gymnastics, 2008 Olympics, gymnastics, ACL, return to play, sport psychology, mindset