Quick Chat- Sam Mikulak
June 08, 2012
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Quotable: Sam Mikulak
By Chris Korotky
University of Michigan’s Sam Mikulak
is on a roll! The 2011 NCAA All Around Champion and 2012’s runner-up came to
the 2012 VISA Championships with a mission to begin his Olympic quest with a
bang… and he did just that! In prelims, Mikulak placed third overall and thanks
to some pre-event exposure in the local press, gained a fan base along the way.
We caught up with the So-Cal native following qualification round.
On missing last
year’s Visa Championships with ankle injuries…
I wasn’t able
to compete at Visa Championships last year– I broke both of my ankles– so that
was unfortunate, having to watch it through the TV. But it was a lot of fun
getting back out here.
On the fan support
during the competition…
I kind of came out of nowhere, I guess, so I started getting
a few fans cheering my name as the competition kept going, and it felt nice. It
was kind of good just to have a little comfort zone of people cheering me on. It
was fun having people eyeing me down, and when I would salute my hand, I’d get
a group going saying stuff like, “Yeaaah! Go Sam! You got it!” And I was like,
“Yeah! I got it!” So it was a lot of fun.
On his 7.0 D-value
Kasamatsu double vault (which actually contains three twists)…
It felt great! I’ve been working it every day for the past
two weeks just really hard, putting a bunch of stacked mats in the pit and
trying
to save the ankles. It’s paid off, trying to work on my pre-flight and
trying to get the high block and being able to have enough time to save my
ankles for a good landing. I think everything worked out well, and I feel
pretty confident in it.
On pommel horse, a
key for Team USA…
Pommel horse. I’ve been doing routines on horse… Any day we
have an off day, I make sure I still do a pommel horse routine because that
event– anything can happen– and I just need to get in the zone where when I get
up there, I’m just going through the motions– just breathing. I feel like I got
to that point, but my dismount was a little shaky because my arm just started
getting real tired at the end, and I was like, “Come on! Just get it up there!”
And somehow god must have picked me up because I didn’t think I was going to
make it. I was real pleased; My performance was really smooth throughout the
routine, and I had a lot of fun with it.
On what’s next..
It’s kind of a fight for that fifth spot between everybody.
I don’t want to say anyone is for sure on the team, but you know that there’s
very limited space on that team, and just have to work as hard as you can to
get in there.
That was definitely my goal coming in here [to perform with
confidence under pressure]– being able to show that I’m ready, I’m feeling
good, and that I’m ready to compete for Team USA. I think that they saw that. I
had a good fight throughout the whole competition, made some good points on p-bars
and high bar, vault, so I’m pretty confident and just want to go out the next
day and hit even better than I did today.
It’s exciting because I’m up with the big dogs right now,
and it’s the best time to be making the difference. Pressure is something I
channel in and get my energy levels pumped up, so I find it helps me when I go
out. I get that adrenaline and feel like I can channel it into my gymnastics!
Mikulak moves toward tomorrow’s finals competition at VISA
Championships with California cool that few would be able to maintain in a
situation like this. It’s evident that Sam Mikulak is prepared to fight for the
Olympic Games.
What do you think of Mikulak’s chances on being launched to
London? Tell us what you think on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/insidegymnastics and Twitter @insidegym
Look for coverage of VISA Championships and Sam Mikulak in
an upcoming issue of Inside Gymnastics magazine
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