<p>The NCAA women's gymnastics championships is taking on an Olympic atmosphere, with vault, balance beam, uneven bars and floor exercise being contested on podiums for the first time.</p><p>Georgia, trying for its sixth national title, will face Stanford, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma and Nebraska in preliminaries Thursday. The top three advance to Friday night's final.</p><p>Events were staged at floor level during the previous 23 championships, and that's where college gymnasts compete during the regular season.</p><p>But after working at last summer's world championships in Anaheim, UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field discovered the 3-foot-high elevated surface commonly used at the Olympics, world and U.S. championships was going to sit idle until the U.S. Olympic trials in Anaheim in June.</p><p>So she had the podiums brought to Pauley Pavilion. The recent men's NCAA championships were held on a podium, too.</p><p>Many of the gymnasts competing in the three-day meet have never performed on a podium before.</p><p>"It's a lot more exciting because you get to perform more to the audience," said UCLA senior Jeanette Antolin, a favorite to win the all-around title. "It's a lot bouncier and it's better on your body."</p><p>Oklahoma's Steve Nunno was on two U.S. Olympic coaching staffs. His team has never competed on a podium, although he favors the change.</p><p>"Having a podium is going to add a little spice to the broth," he said. "I don't know how my team is going to react. It'll be interesting."</p><p>The podium puts athletes in more of an individual spotlight, and it means teammates won't be standing nearby at floor level.</p><p>"It's a little lonely being up there by yourself, but at the same time, it's like being at the Olympics," Nebraska senior Libby Landgraf said.</p><p>"In college, you really count on your team being right there, visually and audibly so that will be different," Alabama senior Kinsey Rowe said.</p><p>The podium is familiar to former Olympians Elise Ray of Michigan and UCLA teammates Jamie Dantzscher, Kristin Maloney and Kate Richardson.</p><p>Ray, Dantzscher and Maloney were members of the 2000 team that was the first U.S. squad not to win a team or individual Olympic medal in 30 years. None of them plan to try out for this year's Olympic team.</p><p>Richardson was on Canada's 2000 Olympic team and she expects to compete in the Athens Games. She is the defending bars and beam champion. Dantzscher tied Richardson for the bars title last year.</p><p>Ray, the 2001 co-NCAA all-around champion and balance beam winner in 2002, sat out last season with a shoulder injury. She is a favorite for the all-around title.</p><p>"As soon as I started competing again this year, it sort of fell into place and it felt like I hadn't taken any time off," she said. "My shoulder has held up really well and I feel good."</p><p>Eighteen gymnasts from the 12 teams that qualified for the NCAAs have competed in the Olympics or world championships.</p><p>Antolin, a former U.S. national team member, has scored a school-record 11 perfect 10s this season, including seven in a row on vault. The Bruins open team preliminaries Thursday night on vault.</p><p>"Starting off on vault is going to be good for our team because we do have strong vaults," she said.</p><p>Alabama's Ashley Miles is the defending vault champion.</p><p>UCLA has won three of the last four NCAA championships. The Bruins join Utah, Georgia and Alabama as the only teams to win titles in the event's 22-year history.</p><p>"They might have to stumble for somebody to get in the door," Arizona State coach John Spini said of the Bruins.</p>
