No. 1 Oklahoma fell just short in its quest for a 13th national championship in men's gymnastic, finishing in the runner-up spot to Stanford in the 2026 Men's Gymnastics Championships finals at the University of Illinois State Farm Center on Saturday.
With the No. 1 OU women having captured their eighth national championship earlier in the day on Saturday, the Sooner men were hoping to pull off the rare double-double of winning national titles by both the men and women in the same sport and in the same year. Oklahoma did that in gymnastics in back-to-back years in 2016 and 2017.
Sooners don't complete national championship sweep in gymnastics
Stanford, instead, won its 11th championship and fifth in the last six years with a composite score of 329.825. In three of those seasons (2021, 2022 and 2026), the Sooners finished in the runner-up position behind the Cardinal.
Oklahoma's 328.495 was just 1.31 points back of Stanford's winning score. Third place went to last year's national champion, Michigan (324.857), while Nebraska (324.662) was fourth, Illinois (322.224) fifth and Ohio State (316.093) sixth.
The Sooners had been ranked No. 1 all season and came into their 26th consecutive finals as the top overall seed in this season's NCAA Championships. Mark Williams has headed the OU men's gymnastics program for all 26 seasons and has overseen nine of its 12 national titles.
"We gave it everything we had," OU head coach Mark Williams said. "We made a run at it, and our guys just weren't going to give up, even on vault in the last event. We pretty much maxed out what they could do there. We hit 100 percent on high bar and pommel horse, so I really couldn't ask for a better performance."
Oklahoma did not come home with the team championship trophy, but the Sooners did come away with national champions in three of the events.
Senior team captain Kelton Christiansen, a former walk-on, delivered one of the best high-bar performances of his career. He matched his 14.400 score against Nebraska in late February and is the 2026 national champion in the event. Christiansen became the second straight OU gymnast to be crowned national champion on high bar. Emre Dodanli won the event a year ago.
Freshman Nathan Roman posted a high score of 14.800 on parallel bars, the highest score in the nation in that event, eclipsing his 14.700 score two weeks ago in the MPSF Championship. Roman is OU's first national champion on parallel bars since Yul Moldauer in 2018.
The Sooners also got a championship performance from junior Tyler Flores on vault in the team's final rotation of the championship. Flores is Oklahoma's first vault national champion since Gage Dyer in 2021.
Oklahoma ended the season with a 23-1 record. Its 328.495 score in the NCAA finals was the Sooners' fifth score of 328.400 or better this season. OU has finished first or second in 20 of the last 26 NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships and in the top three in 24 of the last 25, dating back to the 2001 season.
The NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships a year from now will be hosted by Oklahoma at Lloyd Noble Center.
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