Howell, Fowlerville grads win NCAA men’s gymnastics title at Michigan

ANN ARBOR — Before they were national championship gymnastics teammates at the University of Michigan, Kyle Walchuk of Howell and Landen Blixt of Fowlerville were two young boys dealing with foot injuries while training in the same gym.

Walchuk had recently moved to Michigan when he joined Infinity Gymnastics Academy in Brighton where Blixt was already a budding star.

Walchuk, 12 at the time, injured his foot during his second practice. Blixt, 13, broke a foot a few weeks earlier. Unable to train, they worked on their conditioning together while their injuries healed.

From mutual disappointment, a bond quickly formed.

“It’s not great to have injuries, but looking back it was the best thing that could have happened because it gave us the opportunity to get to know each other,” Walchuk said. “We’re only a year different. We had a lot in common. We talked a lot, car-pooled to the gym. That was part of the draw to even come to Michigan in the first place.”

Blixt arrived at Michigan after graduating from Fowlerville in 2022. Walchuk became a Wolverine after graduating from Howell the following year.

They joined a program that had been close to winning national championships for a few years before breaking through to win the NCAA title April 19 in its home arena at the Crisler Center.

Neither gymnast competed in the national meet. Blixt suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the first meet of the season, while Walchuk is a pommel horse specialist on a team that is deep in that event.

They contributed in other ways.

Blixt learned how to add value to the team, even when he couldn’t compete, by making suggestions to his teammates to improve their routines and offering encouragement. His biggest regret the previous year was not speaking up when he saw something a teammate could improve.

“This year only being able to help the team cheering wise in the gym, planning out schedules for people, that’s all I could do,” Blixt said. “I was really happy I got to fill that regret this year. That’s why I felt so good, because even though I didn’t compete, I felt like I literally gave everything.”

Being surrounded by teammates with such high aspirations helped Blixt cope with his injury.

“The team helped me a lot because my role changed but the goal remained the same,” he said. “I still had something to look forward to. If I was in club gymnastics before college, it literally would have felt like my world was collapsing. Because I have these guys and the goal hadn’t finished of winning a national championship, I was able to bounce back quickly.”

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Walchuk was in Michigan’s lineup for six of its 14 events. His contribution was pushing the other pommel horse specialists throughout the season because, if they faltered, he was ready to take their spot.

“The pushing for those couple of spots gets pretty intense,” Walchuk said. “There’s no animosity or anything, just that drive that we’re all pushing each other. At the end of the day, we all want to win a national championship and we want to see the team succeed. We push to compete with other pommel horse specialists. It’s the best thing for the team, and we all realize that. It leads to a real healthy dynamic.”

Winning the national championship became an all-consuming focus for the Wolverines after back-to-back runner-up finishes that were preceded by two straight third-place showings.

“Throughout the year, we learned there was way more to give,” Blixt said. “None of us knew what it took to win a national championship, obviously, because this team never won one before. It was cool just to see all the work we’ve put in compared to the other years.”

It wasn’t easy. If it was, every team would win national championships.

“It was a pretty long season, going through with such high expectations,” Walchuk said. “Everyone was pushing pretty hard. Tensions are high. It was certainly one of the harder seasons I’ve seen.”

Because Blixt’s injury happened so early in the season, he gets an extra year of eligibility after his senior season next winter. That will give him an extra season to compete in a program that produced three Olympians and an Olympic alternate last summer as he works toward his goal of qualifying for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

“The Olympics have been my biggest goal since I was little,” he said. “It’s something you want to have come true. It’s like a dream and you don’t know how to get there. Now that I’m on this path, especially with my coaches here, you can see the road. You just have to keep doing the right things.”

Walchuk said his studies as a material science and engineering major at Michigan would make it difficult to put in the extra training needed to pursue an Olympic goal. He was studying quantum theory when reached for his interview, has a lab scheduled this summer that will take up eight hours a day and has joined project teams at the university.

“We have two (U.S.) Olympians in the gym,” Walchuk said. “I’ve seen the commitment it takes physically, the time it takes to recover and do all the training. I don’t know if it’s realistic to have all the goals I have outside of the gym along with Olympic goals.”

Rather than focusing on pommel horse, the one event that would give him the best shot at the Olympics, Walchuk hopes to become stronger in multiple events to help the team over his final two years.

Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on X @BillKhan