Morgan Hurd
The first of four world cups in the 2020 season kicks off with the American Cup in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this weekend, and the stakes this year are high, with three Olympic berths up for grabs when all is said and done.
With Tokyo on the line, the field is a bit tougher than usual this year, but 2017 world champion Morgan Hurd looks better than ever, bringing upgrades along with a fire that comes with missing out on making last year’s world championships team.
So often people ask me if I think Hurd peaked in 2018, and mention her “falling apart” last year as proof that she’s “done.” Are you kidding me? In her senior career, Hurd has done about 25 competitive uneven bars sets, and she’s only missed one of them, when she fell at the world selection camp weeks before Stuttgart, causing her to miss the team. Her other mistakes when it counted late last year were also rather flukey, with a missed pass on floor causing her to attempt — and miss — a harder pass she hadn’t trained so she could keep her start value up, and then she had a few minor things go wrong that nonetheless kept her from placing as high as she’s capable of not because she was “falling apart,” but because the depth in the United States is just that strong that minor mistakes actually mean a lot right now.
Though she ended up not making the worlds team last year, I will go to my grave defending why she should’ve been there, and without the current “top ranked girls at this one decisive meet go, and that’s final” rule, her consistent hit rate — in the lead-off spot, no less — at world championships, overall performance history, and potential should’ve been taken into consideration for the strategy that goes into choosing a team.
Hurd is the only American gymnast to count only hit routines on the balance beam at worlds this quad, and she’s achieved the remarkable, almost impossible feat of making world finals on every event she contends for, winning medals on beam and floor in addition to her two all-around medals in 2017 and 2018. She has her off days, typically when nothing is truly on the line, but put her under true pressure and she’s a force to be reckoned with. Not sending her to Stuttgart was frankly a mistake.
Or was it? Maybe not sending her to Stuttgart could be key in turning her from a talented gymnast into a fiery Olympic contender. These upsets athletes face, like getting injured or missing a medal or not making a team, so often inspire greatness in the comebacks, and based on what Hurd showed in her podium training in Milwaukee today was just a glimpse of what is to come.
Despite showing off a few upgrades and a brand-new floor routine, Hurd looked calm, confident, and solid with the added difficulty. Her Downie release on bars was flawless, she nailed a new side aerial to layout stepout series, and she brought back her full-in beam dismount with relative ease for the most part, aside from putting her hands down once late in the rotation. Compared to most of the other competitors in this field, Hurd was a step beyond in just how tight and ready she looked, and it’s clear she’s more than ready to begin her road to the Olympic Games tomorrow morning.
For the U.S. team, Hurd is the one competing for Olympic qualification points, but first-year senior Kayla DiCello is also on hand as the country’s “wild card” option, and will be looking forward to the competition giving her the jump-start she needs to make the jump from talented junior to Olympic-contending senior.
It’s rare that first-year seniors make U.S. Olympic teams, and generally those who do it are spotted at 12 or 13 — like Shawn Johnson in 2008, Kyla Ross in 2012, and Laurie Hernandez in 2016 — as major talents to keep an eye on. At 12 or 13, DiCello was average at best, but wasn’t anyone you’d pick out as someone to watch for the future.
But as she got a bit older, DiCello began to gain notice for her improved execution, and once she figured that out, she easily began adding upgrades that were just as beautifully-performed. She went from consistently scoring in the low 50s in 2017 to breaking a 55 just six months later, and last year, DiCello led the U.S. junior world championships team, taking home medals on vault and beam in addition to finishing fourth all-around, helping her country secure bronze as a team and proving herself as one of the top junior talents in the world.
As junior national champion last year, DiCello’s scores and performances would’ve placed her in the mix as one of the top seniors in the country, though she was still part of that massive pack of girls scoring in the 56-57 range, which is pretty much everyone but Simone Biles. At the senior level, with a lower difficulty level than many of the other seniors, it’ll be all about DiCello finding out how to break away from that pack, and the competition this weekend will help set her on that path.
In podium training, DiCello looked a bit more nervous than usual on bars and beam. (she’s generally super clean and solid on both, though neither is a “selling point” event for her). Vault and floor are where she’ll hope to gain an advantage over the other competitors both here and on the U.S. national team, and she looked great there, so if she can nail these tomorrow and then simply hit the other two, she’ll be in a great position to finish in the top three while also showing Tom Forster why she needs to be on the Olympic team this year.
In addition to the Americans, the international field is also quite strong, and should present a challenge, especially from gymnasts like Ellie Black of Canada.
Black, who injured her ankle while throwing a Rudi in the worlds all-around final last year in a last-ditch attempt to medal, returned on bars and beam at Elite Canada last month, winning the bars title but falling short on beam after a couple of weak-for-her performances. She’s still not at a hundred percent, and notably struggled on her front handspring layout full vault in podium training today, but if she can stand that up in competition and come through on her other events, she’s one of my picks for top three.
I’m also incredibly excited to see the senior debut of Great Britain’s Jennifer Gadirova. Like DiCello, Gadirova was an average junior for most of her career, mostly falling short behind her teammates because she lacked the difficulty to really contend (given the massive air she gets on her brand-new double double now, can you believe that just a few years ago, she didn’t have a double salto pass on floor?!). Even at nationals last year, Gadirova wasn’t quite one of the top girls, and then she stunned everyone by not only making the junior worlds team, but then making multiple finals, winning a silver on vault.
Since then, it’s been lights-out for Gadirova, who has added so much difficulty. Her Yurchenko double on vault is one of the best in the world, so it’s no surprise she’s training an Amanar, while she’s added an excellent full-in dismount off beam as well as her double double on floor.
Gadirova’s test this weekend and going forward to Olympic selection will be her consistency, as she tends to be a bit of a wild card on bars and beam. Sometimes she hits well enough to bring in scores that keep her in all-around contention, but other times she has disastrous mistakes that can completely take her out of it, which obviously isn’t something the team can risk in Tokyo this summer. But if she can prove herself on vault and floor, and then show good enough bars and beam to get by, she’s going to be incredibly difficult to ignore.
I thought Georgia Godwin of Australia — who has already qualified for the Olympic Games as an individual — and Sarah Voss of Germany also looked really strong in training today, with any mistakes just a result of being slightly off on various skills instead of being telling of any larger issue, unlike some of the others here, like Italy’s Giorgia Villa, who struggled with skills on pretty much every event, looking a bit run-down and exhausted while crashing skills that are typically easy for her, and Ukraine’s Diana Varinska, who wasn’t super tight on most of her skills (like Godwin, she’s already qualified to Tokyo).
Hitomi Hatakeda of Japan also looked pretty solid in training, though she doesn’t have any huge standout routines and will find it more difficult to come in as one of the top gymnasts here unless she absolutely blows it out of the water while others struggle. The same goes for Zhang Jin of China, Lorette Charpy of France, and Alba Petisco of Spain, all of whom are talented and capable all-arounders who could very well end up ranked in the top half of competitors here, but if the top girls are all “on,” it’ll be harder for these gymnasts to be standouts.
As for the men, Sam Mikulak will represent the United States on its quest for Olympic qualification points, while Shane Wiskus will compete as the country’s wild card gymnast. Without Nikita Nagornyy here — the Russians withdrew from the competition due to it being “really far away” — Mikulak actually has a shot to capture gold, but he’ll have Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaiev and Japan’s Daiki Hashimoto as pretty big competition.
Also competing for the men are Andreas Toba of Germany, Pablo Brägger of Switzerland, James Hall of Great Britain, Rene Cournoyer of Canada, Lee Chih-Kai of Chinese Taipei, Nestor Abad of Spain, and Diogo Soares of Brazil in his much-anticipated senior debut.
The women’s competition begins Saturday, March 7, at 11 am CT, while the men compete the same day at 3:30 pm CT. Here are all of the relevant links you’ll need to follow along:
- Start lists (MAG and WAG)
- WAG live stream (NBC, U.S. only)
- MAG live stream (NBC, U.S. only)
- Live scoring
We’ll also. be live blogging the competition live from the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee!
Article by Lauren Hopkins