2007 U.S. Gymnastics Championships: Same old story for American men

For many of the U.S.’s best male gymnasts, the 2007 National Championships are turning into an “imagine what might have been” competition.

Again.

After three of the six events, many expected to be competiting for the title of best in the U.S. appeared to be shooting themselves in the foot. But this is gymnastics, there are no guns or rifles, only chalk and wrist guards, so we’ll say the judges were doing the shooting, and the gymnasts were providing the ammo.

With a score of 45.95, favorite Jonathan Horton, who won the prestigious American Cup for the second time earlier this year, was leading the competition. It was a comfortable lead; Horton was about eight tenths of a point ahead of Guillermo Alvarez, meaning he could fall on another event and likely retain his position at the top of the standings.

The problem is that Horton had already fallen, touching his hands down on vault during the second rotation.

Translation: Others are doing so poorly that the best guy can fall and still win.

This is nothing really new for the American men, who had one brief shining moment at the 1984 Olympic Games in L.A. and have been trying to figure out what happened ever since.

Granted, they had a pretty good run at the 2004 Olympics, but Athens was the success it was literally half thanks to Wisconsin gymnastics prodigies Paul and Morgan Hamm, who between the two of them performed 24 of the 48 routines that put the U.S. back on the medal stand for the first time in 20 years. There, they lost the gold medal only to the Japanese, a team that certainly knows something about being the best in the world at the sport and then falling off the map for two decades.

Since then, however, it’s been nothing but downhill. At the 2006 World Championship in Aarhus, Denmark, the men placed 13th in the team competition, the lowest in a series of low points.

That 13th place finish set off all kinds of alarm bells. Simply put, it cannot happen again, especially not in 2007, where the top 12 teams — not the top 13 — qualify to the Olympic team competition in Beijing. Not to qualify a full team to the Olympic Games, especially after winning the team silver the last time around, would be — well, there aren’t really words for it.

So after Aarhus, they did what all athletes do — licked their wounds and went back to the gym, vowing to work harder and do better next time.

“Sometimes you just have those nights,” national team member Yewki Tomita said of the team’s performance in Denmark during an interview for USA Gymnastics: Behind the Team, a serial documentary put together by AT&T Blueroom. “I’m sure Michael Jordan’s Bulls got blown out by 30 sometime during the regular season.”

“Smart countries definitely see us as contenders. I think they saw Denmark as a big mistake,” said Raj Bhavsar, who narrowly missed out on a spot on the 2004 Olympic team. “We’re going to learn from it.”

There’s no doubt that these guys are world class. Horton’s skills and combinations are so difficult his nickname is “X Games.” 2006 U.S. all-around champion Alexander Artemev attempted two triple-twisting Yurchenko vaults. Up-and-comer Justin Spring’s high bar, vault and floor routines would win world and Olympic championship medals if he could do them without messing up in competition.

Imagine what might have been. But so far at this National championships, it’s been the same old story.

Horton fell again on the high bar during the fourth rotation and scored a 13.2. Spring, with the most difficulty and the least consistency, fell off the parallel bars twice and touched his hands down on vault. But after five rotations, he was still tied for third place.

It begs the question: If they can’t even fight correctly amongst themselves, how are they going to face the world champion Chinese team? Not to mention the Russians, Romanians, Japanese, Brazilians, Dutch, Germans…

Further reading: Quick Hits from tonight’s men’s qualification round, courtesy of Inside Gymnastics Magazine.