Tour is a high point for Olympic medalist

When former BYU gymnast Guard Young was chosen in mid-July to be a member of the U.S. men's team for the 2004 Athens Games, he said he was looking forward to the post-Olympic exhibition tour almost as much as the world-stage competition itself.

As a member of the U.S. World Championships team in 2003, "I was able to go on last year's (post-season) tour, which was only nine cities long but was like a dry run-through for all the production and everyone involved with this year's tour.

"I had the time of my life," said Young, in Salt Lake City and Provo Tuesday to promote the T.J. Maxx 2004 Tour of Olympic Champions that makes a visit Friday at 7 p.m. at the Delta Center.

"It seriously was one of the best times of my life since I started doing the sport of gymnastics," Young said of the 2003 tour.

Young, women's Olympic all-around gold medalist Carly Patterson, four other members of the gold-medal women's team, four other members of the silver-medalist men's team and a rhythmic, tumbling/trampoline and acro-gym act will perform exhibition/entertainment-style gymnastics routines Friday night.

"It's such a fun environment. We can showcase ourselves without the rules of gymnastics, without being penalized for hops," said Young, still energized after performing in 39 shows already.

For show-goers who register in advance at www.tjmaxxgymnasticstour.com/preevent.asp and bring a receipt from a T.J. Maxx purchase, there's a "Behind-the-Team" question-and-answer period available with four of the athletes at 5:15-6 p.m. Young expects to be involved with that.

He wants to be involved in that. "It's a time that we can interact with the kids, and I love doing that," he said."We don't get to do any of that at a competition because we're so focused on the task at hand.

"To me it's one of the funnest things of the Olympics is to meet people on this tour."

He'll spend Thursday talking with youngsters at eight gym clubs and grade schools around northern Utah, and he's done so in several tour cities already. He talks to kids about staying fit, having a healthy lifestyle and getting "involved with something. I call it 'character definers.' I'm 5-foot-3, 120 pounds. I needed a character definer, and that was gymnastics for me," he says.

Young does corporate motivational speaking and eventually wants to enter television color gymnastics commentary, but he also will keep competing, hoping to make the individual-event world championships team in vault and rings next summer in Brisbane, Australia.