California men’s gymnastics returns to action this weekend after a two-week break from competition, returning to The Farm for the Stanford International Collegiate on Saturday at 4 p.m. PT. The Golden Bears will meet Stanford for the third time this season, as well as Team USA, Team Mexico and a group of international all-stars entered as one squad.
 
Both live streaming and live scores from the competition will be available on Virtius.
 
The Bears will look to bounce back from a difficult outing at a tri-meet against Greenville and Simpson on Feb. 7, a contest which the hosting Panthers won with what was then a season-best score of 306.650 to Cal’s 306.600 and Simpson’s 291.450. Redshirt senior Jasper Smith-Gordon won his third event title of the season and first on pommel horse, while sophomore Troy Nuesca earned his first career win on rings thanks to an outstanding execution score. Over the following two weeks, senior Theodor Roald Gadderud and sophomore Matteo Bardana each found personal success beyond the collegiate stage. Roald Gadderud represented Norway at the Apparatus World Cup in Cottbus, Germany, while Bardana won the senior next gen all-around, rings, parallel bars and high bar title at Elite Canada.
 
ACROSS THE GYM – STANFORD: Led by 24th-year head coach Thom Glielmi, Stanford has won five of the last six NCAA championship titles and is coming off a 2025 runner-up finish, finishing just .163 behind Michigan. The standout on the Cardinal’s roster is U.S. National Team member Asher Hong, a 2024 Olympic bronze medalist and a six-time NCAA champion, with two of those titles coming in 2025 on floor and rings. David Shamah, who was just named to the U.S. National team following this year’s Winter Cup, is the nation’s top man on parallel bars (14.217 average, 14.500 high), while teammate Nick Kuebler leads on high bar with a 13.950 average (14.600 high). Stanford’s five-man freshman class is led by current U.S. Senior Development Team member Jun Iwai, who led his squad to a gold medal at the 2025 Pan American Championships while earning an individual title on floor. As a team, Stanford has the second-best overall average in the nation (322.433) and leads the country on floor (54.367), rings (54.333) and parallel bars (54.600).
 
Cal last met Stanford at the Stanford Open on Jan. 28, with the Cardinal outscoring the Bears 326.450-313.950. Stanford leads the all-time series 154-128-2.
 
ROOKIE STANDOUT
Following his collegiate debut on Jan. 9, freshman Nathan Underhill was named a Co-Rookie of the Week by the CGA along with Michigan’s Eli Osuna. Underhill posted one of Cal’s three 14-plus scores on vault to help the squad to an event title and a nation-best score, also recording the team’s second-best routine on rings. He joins current teammate Jasper Smith-Gordon (2023) as well as alumni Noah Newfeld (2021) and Darren Wong (2019) as the only Bears to claim national rookie of the week recognition.
 
NEW YEAR, NEW ROLES
Cal’s coaching staff is composed of three program alumni this season, each of whom has competed or coached at the highest level. New head coach Bryan Del Castillo, who spent the previous six years with the Bears as an assistant and was the interim head coach for the second half of the 2025 season, earned five All-America honors as a gymnast at Cal and is a former member of the U.S. National Team. Third-year assistant coach Karl Ziehn is a former U.S. National Team coach as well as a seven-year assistant at Stanford, helping the Cardinal to a national title in 2019. New to Cal’s staff is Donothan Bailey, a former teammate of Del Castillo’s who was a three-time All-American and is the last Golden Bear to win an MPSF title on pommel horse (2012, 2014), won a bronze medal with the U.S. National Team in 2011 and also coached the USA Gymnastics Resident Team in 2011-22. During their time at Cal, Del Castillo and Bailey were named finalists for the Nissen Emery Award, the top honor presented annually to a senior collegiate men’s gymnast.
 
ON THE WORLD STAGE
Senior Theodor Roald Gadderud of Norway and sophomore Matteo Bardana of Canada each represented their respective nations on the international stage in the summer of 2025. Roald Gadderud, a four-time All-MPSF honoree who earned two MPSF medals in 2025, competed at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships after runner-up finishes on floor, high bar and the all-around at the Norwegian National Championships. One of the youngest gymnasts ever to be recruited by the Norwegian National Team at age 11, Roald Gadderud ranked 10th in the NCAA on parallel bars in 2025 and competed in his third straight NCAA Championships final. Bardana, who broke Cal’s high bar record in the Bears’ 2026 season opener, helped Canada to its first medal in history (silver) at the FISU World University Games as a member of the Canadian Senior Next Gen National Team, earning the spot after winning the Canadian Senior Next Gen parallel bars title and bronze medals on floor and rings. In his first season with the Bears, Bardana earned All-MPSF and MPSF Freshman of the Week honors, later qualifying for the NCAA Championships final on floor and rings.
 
THEY’RE BACK
In addition to Roald Gadderud and Bardana, Cal returns several of its top gymnasts for the 2026 season. Jasper Smith-Gordon, a redshirt senior who owns the vault school records in the current and previous scoring systems, is a two-time College Gymnastics Association (CGA) Regular-Season All-American (2023-24) in the event and the reigning MPSF vault champion, becoming the first Bear to win a conference vault title in 38 years. Fellow senior Khalen Curry is a two-time All-MPSF honoree and a three-time NCAA Finals qualifier, while juniors Carter Kim and Jaxon Mitchell also have received All-MPSF recognition. Sophomore Trigg Dudley, who competed in the British Championships last spring, won the floor title in December at the College Gymnastics Association (CGA) All-Star exhibition contest.
 
NEW BEARS IN THE RANKS
Cal is fielding six rookies and one graduate transfer in this season’s squad. All-around stars Nathan Underhill (Oconomowoc, Wis.), Davide Comparin (Irving, Texas) and Liam DeWeese (Murphy, Texas) each have a Men’s Development Program national title to their name, while Finley Chin (Irvine), JD Ehinger (Coppell, Texas) and Will Horenziak (Montgomery, Ohio) have a combined 15 state championships over the past four seasons. Comparin, DeWeese and Ehinger are also former club teammates, having competed for Texas Dreams Gymnastics as junior gymnasts Finally, newcomer Kaien Orion spent the 2023-25 seasons at Stanford, helping the Cardinal to national titles in 2023-24 and appearing in the NCAA Finals in each of the past two years.
 
STAY POSTED
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