Focused

Four-time All-American Alex Diab is the 2018 still-rings national champion.(Image courtesy of UI Athletics)

Even before his senior season began, four-time NCAA All-American Alex Diab had racked up a list of accomplishments that most would call a successful career. But Diab still had unfinished business on his mind, even after achieving a major personal goal last spring.

After a tough dismount on still rings kept him off the medal stand as a sophomore in 2017, Diab says he used that performance to fuel his ambition to capture the still-rings title the following season. It’s a prize he’s coveted since he was a child because his father, Mark, was a two-time NCAA still-rings champion at Iowa State.

The younger Diab accomplished his lifelong dream by winning the still-rings crown at the 2018 NCAA Championships.

Now he says his “biggest goal is to bring a [national] championship to Illinois.”