The next person I’ll be introducing is Vitaly Marinitch.  Vitaly was my coach during the two years that I was at the Olympic Training Center (’02-’04).  He was on the Soviet team when they were dominant and he’s racked up a bunch of world championship medals including a team gold.  Vitaly was also the originator of the “Marinitch” release on high bar and also has a couple other skills named after him (you can check out the skill on the second video @ around 24 seconds).  My former teammate, Nate Downs, actually did a “Marinitch” and caught in an “el-grip.”  It’s probably one of the coolest tricks I’ve ever seen.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find the video so maybe if I asked nicely he would come out of retirement and do another one for me so I could catch it on film!

Anyway, Vitaly is currently the head coach at the Olympic Training Center.  It’s great because every time we have a national training camp at the OTC I get to see him!