Shane Wiskus knew his body was betraying him and he couldn’t run the risk of having it betray Team USA in the process. So, the 25-year-old former Gophers star gymnast made the incredibly difficult decision to withdraw from the Pan American Games last year, forgoing the chance to represent his country despite working so hard to earn his spot on the U.S. men’s gymnastics team.
“It got to the point that I would go into the gym and not know if I could do gymnastics that day,” he said. “I knew I couldn’t put that on my teammates.”
As much as the injures crushed his spirit at the time, Wiskus, who is from Spring Park, Minn., reflected with gratitude as he prepared for the U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Trials, which begin on Thursday night at Target Center in Minneapolis. Not only did the Pan Am Games setback force him to confront his own mortality in the sport he loves so much, it set him on a path toward rediscovering why he fell in love with the sport in the first place.
“I really tried to refocus, like, ‘Why am I actually doing this?’ ” he said. “If this is going to be my last year with the sport, I wanted to make sure I was doing it for all the right reasons.”
Maybe it’s fitting then that the U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Trials are being hosted in his home state. It wasn’t too long ago that Wiskus was a child growing up in west-metro Spring Park, fearlessly flipping through the air with childhood dreams of representing Team USA at the pinnacle of the sport.
After going on to have an illustrious collegiate career with Gophers men’s gymnastics team from 2018-21, Wiskus accomplished a lifelong goal by qualifying for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Ironically, as memorable as that milestone was for Wiskus in the grand scheme of things, it started to consume him as he set his sights on the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
He went from chasing dreams to chasing results. Not exactly a recipe for success.
“My journey since then has been about falling back in love with the sport,” Wiskus said. “You come off of that high of going to the Olympics and want to chase the next thing. I could feel my expectations of myself serving as the driving factor in everything I was doing as opposed to what used to be my passion for the sport. I was almost forcing it.”
It was a slippery slope for Wiskus made even more treacherous by the injuries that continued to crop up. He decided to take some time off to center himself. He knew how important this particular stretch was going to be, and he wanted to make sure he gave himself the best chance for success.
“Obviously when I was in that moment it was hard not to project like, ‘I hope I don’t feel like this when I have to try to make the Olympics,’ ” Wiskus said. ‘You learn to take a step back and take it one day at a time, and now here I am still taking it one day at a time.”
Though he knows nothing is guaranteed beyond the Olympic Trials this weekend, Wiskus has a newfound perspective that he feels makes him as dangerous as anyone in the competition.
“I love doing it,” he said. “I try to approach it from a stance of gratitude. I’m grateful to be here still able to do what I’m doing. I can still remember how I felt as a young gymnast, and regardless of what happens this weekend, I can already say with confidence that that 12-year-old Shane would be so proud of where I am today.”
