Media Day at American Cup

Inside Gymnastics Publisher Chris Korotky gives a quick run down of Media Day at the Tyson American Cup.

Today was “Media Day” for the Tyson American Cup, which will feature 16 athletes competing tomorrow in the famed Madison Square Garden arena in New York City. The day kicked off with a press conference featuring USA Gymnastics President Steve Penny, 1984 Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton and legendary gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi.

Penny started with a run down of the successes of the U.S. team during this quad and outlined the selection procedures for this year’s Olympic teams before turning the podium over to Retton, who recounted her memories of winning three American Cup titles (1983, 1984, 1985). Sitting in the back of the room during her speech were two of Retton’s four daughters, Shayla (12-years-old and taller than mom!) and Mckenna (10-years-old). Both are Level 8 competitive gymnasts and were unfazed by the attention given to mom by the media during the event, but showed a lot of excitement later for Shawn Johnson, asking mom to introduce them and to help them get autographs from the 2007 World Champion!

While Penny and Retton spoke from behind the podium during the press conference, using a microphone (Retton, who still looks like she’s in competition shape, was barely visible over the podium!), Karolyi took a different approach. Opting to stand in front of the podium and speak without a microphone, Karolyi’s enthusiastic and animated take on this year’s road to Beijing had members of the media laughing, clapping and taking a trip down memory lane with stories of past athlete’s he had coached. At one point, he singled out Mary Lou as “the sunshine of my coaching career.” Of the 2008 Olympics, Karolyi cautioned that the home court advantage (including a very partisan and expressive crowd) for the Chinese gymnasts may be a difficult obstacle to overcome, but expressed his optimism for the prospects of the U.S. team, particularly after witnessing the success of last year’s Worlds coupled with the upgrades in routines he had seen at a recent training camp. He also mentioned how eager he was to see Paul Hamm back on the international competition stage and said the U.S. men are definitely medal contenders. “I’m dying, I’m dying to see that sucker!” he said of anticipation for seeing Hamm in competition tomorrow, drawing loud laughter from the crowd with the remark.

After the press conference, we had an opportunity to watch the athletes train in the arena. On the women’s side, the four American women (Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, Samantha Peszek and Shayla Worley) are clearly the class of the field. The battle for the title will no doubt be from among those four. In training today, Johnson showed a new whip to immediate triple full pass on floor and vaulted several nice, high Yurchenko 2 ½ vaults. Liukin has a brand new routine on uneven bars that has a whopping 7.7 difficulty value, six-tenths more than the silver-medal winning routine from the 2007 Worlds. On beam, she’s added a pike front (one foot landing) to scale and has retired the final layout on her tumbling series on beam. On floor, she showed new tumbling passes of back 1 ½ to front 1 ½ and changed a pass that connected a front layout to front double twist that now features a front full to front double twist. She’s also been training a Yurchenko double but won’t compete it until the summer she said. Here, she’ll stick with the Yurchenko 1 ½. Peszek showed a new dismount on uneven bars (double layout full out) and has returned to her Arabian double front beam dismount. On floor, she also tumbled her double-double and double Arabian which she had taken out for a bit while dealing with injuries. Look for her to compete a double twisting double layout bar dismount later this year. Shayla Worley (featured on the cover of our Nov/Dec issue) also looked great in training all around.

Johnson, Liukin, Peszek and Worley were all members of the 2007 World Championship team that won gold for the United States. World teammates Ivana Hong and Alicia Sacramone are both on the comeback from ankle injuries, but are progressing nicely, according to National Team Coordinator Martha Karolyi. Hong is close to being back to full speed, but wasn’t quite in routine shape at the recent camp, Karolyi said, also noting that Hong is a possibility for the Pacific Rim Championships team. Sacramone recently injured her ankle, but it is only a sprain with no ligament damage and “is minor and not of any great concern,” Karolyi said.

On the men’s side, the competition from the international field is much stronger and should make for an intriguing battle. The event provides an early opportunity to see how Paul Hamm, in his first international meet since the 2004 Olympics, matches up to Fabian Hambuechen (Germany), Hisashi Mizutori (Japan) and U.S. teammate Jonathan Horton, who finished second, third, and fourth respectively, at the 2007 World Championships.  U.S. teammates Raj Bhavsar and Sasha Artemev, both strong talents who had solid training sessions today, also look to challenge Hamm after finishing behind him weeks ago at Winter Cup in Vegas.

One final training session takes place tonight in the arena and competition begins tomorrow morning, with NBC picking up the action at 1pm EST. With a wealth of intriguing storylines – from the battle among the U.S. women to Paul Hamm’s return to international competition as well as Johnson and Horton defending their 2007 Tyson American Cup titles – combined with the atmosphere of a New York crowd in the Garden, tomorrow’s competition should be a fun ride. Tune in and let us know your impressions through our contact line. We’ll share some of your feedback next week here online.

Look for coverage of the Tyson American Cup in the next issue of Inside Gymnastics magazine. Subscribe or Renew now so that you don’t miss a single issue of Inside Gymnastics!

Photos by Lloyd Smith