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March 15, 2013

	Jake Dalton

Former OU gymnasts Jacob Dalton (2010-12) and Steven Legendre (2008-2011) will compete at the 2013 French International/FIG World Cup this weekend in La Roche sur Yon, France. The qualification round of the FIG World Cup is March 16, while the finals will be on March 17. Alex Naddour, an OU gymnast from 2010-11 will also compete.

The two-day competition is a World Cup event and features an elite selection of international gymnasts. Twelve gymnasts compete on each apparatus in the qualification round, and the top four athletes advance to Sunday's finals.

Dalton will compete on floor, rings and vault, while Legendre will compete on floor and Naddour on pommel horse. OU head coach Mark Williams will serve as a coach for the United States alongside Yin Alvarez.

"The French World Cup is a Level A invitation-only event that takes the top 12 guys on each event," Williams said. "It's a very exclusive group just being able to go and compete. The guys who will be on each event are either Olympic or World finalists, so these are the 12 best gymnasts in the world on each event. Jake's going to have a chance to compete on floor, rings, vault and high bar, and Steve will compete on floor. It's an exclusive group that they'll be competing against and it's a preview to what might be the group that competes at the 2013 World Championships. They're looking forward to the competition."

2012 Olympian Danell Leyva makes up the four-man U.S. team in addition to Dalton, Legendra and Naddour. The star-filled international field includes Olympic medalists Hak Seon Yang of South Korea, Denis Ablyazin of Russia, Max Whitlock of Great Britain, Igor Radivilov of Ukraine and France's own Hamilton Sabot.

Since the Olympics, Dalton won the 2013 AT&T American Cup on March 2 with an all-around score of 89.398 in Worcester, Mass. Competing against eight of the best international gymnasts, Dalton also won the floor, rings, vault and high bar titles. In February, he won the all-around at the Winter Cup in Las Vegas with a combined score of 173.250 and claimed event titles on floor and rings with two-day totals of 31.250 and 29.650, respectively.

The qualification round is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. CT, Saturday.

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