The Daily 9, Sat., Aug 15

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Our picks for the top 9 highlights of the day from the '09 US Championships...

1.Tour de force. Bridget Sloan conquered her beam bugaboo from prelims, cleanly hitting her tour jete half—followed by a visible sigh of relief.

Beam behind her, Bridget solidly showed up on all four events tonight, including a stunning floor set that Sloan herself was super-pleased with (for good reason). As she stuck her double pike dismount she couldn’t stop smiling as she danced to her end pose, earning a score that was almost seven tenths higher than her prelim routine and giving her the lead that led to her first National Championships.

2.Hong in there. Ivana Hong’s bars look better to us, but not the judges, apparently. Though we see several places for deductions, we found the 1.3 leveled by the judges a tad harsh.

But Hong—who did up her bars score .55 from day one—kept her cool and collected the silver medal. (Great Yurchenko double twist vault, tiny step, to end.) Not too shabby for a gymnast who said she was only “85 percent” ready for competition. We love her form, style and presentation, which is world-class and may be appreciated more internationally than by the U.S. judges.

3.Comeback kid. If there’s one thing Rebecca Bross learned from her year of injuries, it’s how to comeback - which is what the prelim leader had to do tonight after a disastrous bars start that included two major errors (dead hang and, later, a fall). Still a bit wobbly on beam, Bross brought it all back on floor, rocking her routine and bringing her hometown crowd to its feet. (Calls of “Becaa” filled the arena.)

Bross then earned her bronze with a stuck Yurchenko double twist, earning a meet-high 15.3….Guess Bross’ post-beam pep talk from Nastia Liukin and Sam Peszek got her back on track.

4.Sam’s smile. A happy, relaxed Samantha Peszek was composed, polished and poised on beam and has seemed to be having fun throughout her week in Dallas. She told Inside earlier this week she was trying to keep this year “less stressful” than her Olympic selection experience and, if her ear-to-ear grin tonight was any indication, she seems to be succeeding.

5.Crowd Loves the Champ. Nastia Liukin’s one routine on beam was still the night’s highlight for the crowd. Following competition, a terrific video package with highlights of the 2008 U.S. Olympians’ performances was shown on the Jumbo-tron followed by a presentation in which Liukin earned the Athlete of the Year award, to the crowd’s delight.

6.In the house. She wasn’t on the equipment, but 2008 National Champ Shawn Johnson was on the floor for the senior women’s competition, juggling her schedule to make the trip to Dallas and, once here, the Dancing champ enthusiastically cheered on her Olympic teammates. Johnson also brought one lucky young fan to tears, giving her a surprise “spot” (the gymnastics version) during one of John Macready’s arena interstitials. Every time Johnson was show on the Jumbo-tron, she received a huge ovation from the crowd.

7.Cool combo. Georgia Dabritz wasn’t a top contender for the title here but she did show off a cool release combo on bars, doing a Comaneci salto on one side of the bar and then a straddle Jaeger on the other. Bonus cool factor: Dabritz doesn’t wear grips, de rigour for all of today’s Elites. (Dabritz was the only girl to go without here.)

8.Boffo box office. The Dallas Championships finally got their due with a crowd of nearly 11,000 at the American Airlines Center for women’s finals. The audience, almost double day one, got into the action and made the event much more fun to watch for fans and the competition a lot more exciting for the gymnasts.

9.Williams WOW. Our pick for the night’s top tumbler was Kayla Williams, who boomed a double layout mount; 1-1/2 through to double pike; butterfly; drilled a triple twist and then closed with a pike full-in. Each pass stuck cold. Wowsa!

BONUS HIGHLIGHT: Watching a guy holding a “What’s Cookin, Good Liukin?” sign try and mime his number to Nastia via the Jumbo-Tron, while the Olympic Champ got a kick out of it, laughing and smiling.

From the Inside team… Congratulations to all of the athletes who competed here at the 2009 U.S. Championships. Years and years of incredibly hard work and countless sacrifices go into earning one of the coveted spots and each should be proud of making it to the nation’s premiere event.

Photo by Grace Chiu

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