Rochester gymnast Abbi Ryssman to compete among nation’s best at Utah

ROCHESTER – What does it take to be one of the top high school gymnasts in the country?

For Abbi Ryssman, it’s all about balance.

Whether it’s schoolwork between near-daily commutes from her hometown of Rochester to White Bear Lake where she trains, or standing on a beam that has earned her national honors, Ryssman needed balance for her ascension into top-tier gymnastics.

Ryssman, a senior at Rochester Century who doesn’t compete for her high school, is headed to the University of Utah in the fall, where she will join one of the nation’s top gymnastics programs and a perennial national championship contender.

For Ryssman, the full athletic scholarship is the culmination of thousands of hours spent in a gym since she was 3 years old.

“I have always had a huge desire to reach my goals and dreams and also ... the need for perfection almost,” said Ryssman, 17. “I’m a huge perfectionist, and so I just try to do everything the best that I can. I think if you’re going to do something, you should do it right to make it worth your time.”

Ryssman’s path to Division I athletics began with a push from her parents, both former college gymnasts at Brigham Young. Ryssman showed a natural inclination toward gymnastics, her mother recalled, even with the little things she did around the house.

It wasn’t just her parents who took notice. Soon after she enrolled at the former JETS Gymnastics facility in Rochester, coaches saw something special. While some young athletes jump from one skill to another, Ryssman was different, said Daniel Nelson, Ryssman’s coach while at JETS. She focused on the details — the footwork, conditioning and mental toughness.

“We would do drills, like a dance across the floor and everybody would be done, and I’d look back and she was like halfway because she was taking her time and working on the presentation — just even at like 5 and 6 years old,” Nelson said. “I knew there was something special there from the beginning.”

Ryssman trained at JETS through age 15, where she continued to climb the rankings among the country’s best. In 2023, while still at JETS, Ryssman won a national title on the beam at the U.S. Gymnastics development program national championship in Oklahoma City. She also tied for fourth in the all-around competition.

The performance not only boosted Ryssman’s confidence as a gymnast. It led to interest from college programs, too.

Later that year, the family made the decision to look outside of Rochester for training and enrolled her at Flips Gymnastics in White Bear Lake, about 90 minutes away. The transition was challenging. In addition to the commute, the training schedule was grueling, with practices lasting four hours, five days a week.

Her family, though, said the sacrifice has been worth it.

“It was a big decision to make the leap, but if she was going to meet her potential and her goals, that was where we were going to do it,” said Kelli Ryssman, Abbi’s mother. “And we wanted her to have that opportunity.”

Ryssman qualified again for nationals in 2024, but she stumbled on the bars and was unable to repeat her impressive finish of 2023.

While the experience would be crushing for most young athletes, Ryssman saw it as an opportunity. This May, she will head to nationals as one of the favorites on the beam and in the all-around competition.

“When you don’t do as well as you want to, it really lights a fire inside of you,” Ryssman said. “Especially because that was the last meet of the season. It definitely motivated me to work even harder to be more consistent.”

Ryssman is following a pair of fellow Minnesotans who have found success at Utah, winners of a record-tying 10 NCAA championships. Grace McCallum, a senior from Isanti, is an eight-time All-American at Utah and an Olympic silver medal winner, and Ella Zirbes, a Stillwater native who also trained at Flips, is in her second year with the team.

At the collegiate level, Ryssman will have to vie for a position on the team. On a roster of about 15 athletes, only six compete per event, and only five performances count toward the score.

Not impossible for Ryssman.

“The sky’s the limit for her because she works so hard in the gym,” said Lori Roskoski, owner and head coach at Flips Gymnastics. “Before I can even give her a correction, she’s already working through it in her own brain. She just stays so focused on what she’s doing.”

She will do so while pursuing a medical degree. It’s a balancing act that requires a certain level of mental toughness, which Ryssman attributes to her parents, four brothers and her faith. It’s also what distinguishes Ryssman from other competitors.

“You don’t see this very often in athletics, where a kid has a dream at a really, really young age, and then it actually happens for them,” Nelson said. “She’s really earned it.”