Jason Horton, Olympian
The men’s gymnastics team trials finished up on Saturday at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, and this event both wows and frustrates me. The athletes were fantastic – everything around them? Not so much.
Congratulations to Paul Hamm and Jonathan Horton, two of the members that were named to the team on Saturday. Hamm, the reigning Olympic all-around champ, has a broken hand but should be in good shape come August. Horton has been around the gymnastics scene for years, but this is his first Olympic team.
You have to feel for Raj Bhavsa. In 2004, he completed a fantastic trials. He hit every routine but didn’t score highly enough to automatically make the team. For some reason, he was not named to the team going to Athens. This year, he again had a fantastic trials, and still, didn’t automatically qualify. He is a dynamic performer, and clearly has some determination to come back four years later. I hope that he gets his name called today.
The broadcasting team of Tim Daggett, Al Trautwig, Elfie Schlagel and Andrea Joyce on the sidelines might be the most grating combo of announcers among all Olympic sports. To start the broadcast, Trautwig set up a quote from Leonardo DiCaprio from Titanic. As he was setting it up, my mind ran through all the memorable quotes from that atrocious movie, and I couldn’t think of any that fit the Olympic Trials. Then Trautwig comes out with “This is it.” You needed to watch Titanic to come up with that one? Andrea Joyce shows little by way of interviewing skills, which are kind of important in a sideline reporter. She asked David Sender, the reigning U.S. champion who sprained his ankle and had to withdraw from competition, to talk about what it felt like in his heart and his mind to have to withdraw from competition. He did a nice job answering her, and she reworded the same question, so that the poor kid basically had to say again, “It sucks.” Luckily for her and the tweens everywhere watching this, he answered her in a nicer manner than I would have. When talking to Horton right after he was named to the team, he started to answer that he couldn’t describe his feelings, but was clearly still answering her question when she prodded him like a nagging mother – Come on, try! It is going to be a long two weeks in August with her on the sidelines.
I am puzzled as to why they hold this event at all. It only yielded two team members for a team that needs six members! To automatically qualify for the team, the gymnast must place in the top two all-around, and place in the top three in at least three of the six events. After that, the team is decided by a committee from USA gymnastics. I completely understand why this is done – it ensures that the team members offer maximum medal potential and can bring in points to help the team. My question is – can’t they do this with the U.S. Championships, which were held a month ago? Then let the team start focusing on training, and not the stress of making the team.
