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OU men's gymnastics: Sooners sign 4 in 2021 class on National Signing Day

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Mark Williams

OU men's gymnastics coach Mark Williams watches his athletes perform March 9, 2019.

 Paxson Haws/The Daily

Oklahoma’s men’s gymnastics team had four commits put pen to paper on Wednesday on National Signing Day.

Fuzzy Benas, Emre Dodanli, Raydel Gamboa, and Nikolai Kolesnikov will all join the Sooners in the fall of 2021.

Fuzzy Benas

Benas heads north of the Red River to Norman from Richmond, Texas, where he competed for Enrich Gymnastics. Benas’ decorated record includes a top overall finish at the 2020 Winter Cup in Las Vegas. His father was a gymnast at Penn State.

Emre Dodanli

Dodanli is OU’s lone international early signee. The Milton, Ontario, Canada product will come to Oklahoma with junior Canadian national team experience and a friendship with current OU sophomore David Sandro, who he trained with at the junior level.

Raydel Gamboa

Gamboa comes to Norman from Phoenix, Arizona, where he trains at USA Flairs, which is also the gym that former US Olympian Alex Naddour trained at. Like Benas, Gamboa has an illustrious junior record, headlined by a fourth-place vault finish at the 2019 Men's Junior Olympic National Championships.

Nikolai Kolesnikov

Kolesnikov will head south to Norman from Minnesota, where he competes with Mini Hops gymnastics. One of Kolesnikov’s best performances came in 2017 when he finished No. 5 in the all-around in the Region 4 championships. His father was a Soviet gymnast and is now a coach at the University of Minnesota.

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