Olympic Outlook Begins to Crystalize

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Did you help or hurt yourself? That was the question of the day for gymnasts at the men’s U.S. Olympic Trials. It wasn’t about placement, or even points—it was all about impressions, and impressing the five-man Selection

Committee that was watching the men’s every move from the sidelines.

Notching a win was Sasha Artemev, who changed his horse set, stayed on and almost certainly scored big points with the Selection Committee.

“Definitely,” Artemev answered when asked if changing his pommel horse set helped his performance. “It makes things easier for me mentally. I can just focus on my other events and not worry about pommel horse.”

Artemev said he’s still doing his old routine in training and noted he hit it “two times in practice” just yesterday, but has no plans to add back the 270-Russian mount. “The place for [that routine] is event finals at the Olympic Games,” he said firmly.

Leader in the weighted totals, and a tenth behind Artemev tonight, is Jonathan Horton, second to David Sender at last month’s USAs after falling twice on high bar.

Horton made up for it here with a clean set, including a Tak-full, Markelov combo, Kolmann and Kovacs, as well as a triple-twisting double layout—the most-difficult dismount in the competition.

“You can ask my coach, I hit that routine in practice all the time,” Horton said. “So, you know, FINALLY!

“[After my routine,] I looked at the high bar and was, like, defiant,” Horton said of his feelings following the hit set. “I felt like turning around and ripping the bar out of the ground and saying, ‘OK, we are not going to have these problems any more.’ … And my coach, that was like the third time in my life that Mark’s looked more relieved for me to finish a routine than I was.”

Horton also upped his difficulty on  parallel bars with mixed success, struggling on the added peach-half, but showing the Selection Committee he can put together a 6.4 Start Value set. “I’m sticking with that [routine], no question,” Horton said. “I just really struggled on the last half. I know I can do it way better. I think I can score a point, a point and a half higher [overall,] easy.”

Raj Bhavsar was third on the night with strong showings on pommel horse, rings and p-bars.

“I put it all out there,” Bhavsar said of his performance today. “If they don’t select me—they pick a better team—so be it.”

Morgan Hamm continued to up his Olympic ante,  performing strong sets on pommels and high bar, as he gets better and better following a chest muscle tear late last year.

“Hitting horse, for sure, and high bar—I want to move up and be top three there,” Hamm said of his goals for the Games. “There were a lot of good routines on high bar tonight, which was great to see. Jonathan Horton. I mean, if he hits, he’s got one of the most exciting routines in the world and Justin Spring, wow. That was amazing.”

Spring perhaps proved the most of any athlete, finishing in the top three on four of his five events tonight (all but rings).

“I came here and I wasn’t in the mix—I know because people talk, and when you add it up I can see where I was, how I didn’t do enough [events]—and tonight, well, I think I made them (the Selection Committee) take a second look,” a smiling Spring said after the meet. “I needed to hit very much today and I did.”

Spring proved he could produce by performing on floor, a decision he didn’t make until yesterday afternoon after not tumbling at all prior to Tuesday’s training. (Spring sprained his ankle in late April and was in the emergency room last week with a bad back because he was, “favoring both legs which is kind of impossible, so I ended up with a back injury, too,” he laughed.)

Another consistent competitor is Joey Hagerty. Not outstanding on any event—though he was tops on floor and high bar tonight—he’s been almost infallible since USAs and is slowly making his mark as an athlete Team USA can count on, despite his lack of international experience.

Gymnasts posting a check in the loss column would have to include David Durante, who had major errors on horse and high bar, as well as Tim McNeill, who couldn’t duplicate his USA’s success at Trials. 

The same goes for Yewki Tomita who tried to up his Beijing profile by doing five events (he only did three in Houston), only to fall on both floor and his signature event, pommel horse—the main reason he was added to the U.S. team and invited to Trials.

“That was just me screwing up,” Durante said of his performance tonight. “I didn’t do my job. It’s definitely not over but, for me personally, I was hoping to do better.

“It’s so frustrating when you work so hard on something,” Durante added of his pommel horse fall in particular. “I’ve got one more day. I can’t get any more ready than I am, I just have to get up there and do it.”

One more day is the mantra of all 13 athletes still competing in Philadelphia. By Sunday night all will know their Olympic fate, when the training team is announced.