USA Gymnastics is seeking to centralize its nationwide coaching applications earlier than the 2028 Olympics.

President Li Li Leung mentioned Wednesday over a dozen cities have responded to the group’s request for an “expression of interest” in taking over the undertaking, which might function the coaching and wellness headquarters for the group’s varied disciplines.

The nationwide camps for the applications are presently scattered throughout the nation. The girls’s inventive gymnastics nationwide workforce trains in Texas. The males prepare in Colorado. The rhythmic gymnastics workforce meets in New York and the trampoline and tumbling applications break up their camps between Utah and New Jersey.

“The vision of this facility is that it is going to be the heart hub of gymnastics in America,” Leung mentioned. “So it’s going to be where the national teams will train. It’s going to be where athletes of all ages and levels will be able to see their role models train. They will be able to participate in camps and clinics and we will hold educational plans for coaches and judges here.”

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The purpose could be to trim the listing to a sequence of finalists by early 2024. There isn’t any timetable for when a website might be chosen. It’s additionally unclear on whether or not the group would transfer its nationwide headquarters from Indianapolis to wherever the coaching heart may be constructed.

“It’s really a little too soon to say where we’ll be located and where we’re going to break ground, but I can tell you that there’s a long-term project that we’re all really, really excited to be a part of,” Leung mentioned.

Leung mentioned a wide range of components might be considered when choosing a website, together with the world’s stance on girls’s rights.

“In terms of a city or location aligning with our values, that is part of our consideration,” Leung mentioned. “So there are many, many other considerations that fall into that really complex matrix of considerations.”

The transfer to centralize coaching is a undertaking that had been in play beforehand with USA. The group did use the Karolyi Ranch north of Houston for nationwide camps for inventive, rhythmic and trampoline gymnasts however reduce ties with the power in January 2018 amid the fallout of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal.

The group has undergone an enormous overhaul within the final 5 years, with the return of main company sponsors like Nike and Xfinity providing tangible proof that it has achieved a few of the “culture shift” that Leung mentioned was a precedence when she got here on board in early 2019.

Leung pointed to the uptick in partnerships with high-profile corporations as a byproduct of the work the group has performed within the post-Nassar period.

“Only by relentlessly pursuing this cultural change, we’ve been able to get to where we are today,” Leung mentioned “And now we’re at a place where not just athletes and coaches want to come back and be a part of this community, but we actually now have corporate partners and major corporate partners who are wanting to be a part of this community as well.”