San Jose, Calif. – The Beijing Olympics are nearly a year away, but Paul Hamm is doing whatever he can to prey on the minds of the Chinese team, which is heavily favored to dominate men’s gymnastics.
Every chance he gets, it seems, the Olympic all-around champion mentions the pressure on the home team and its reputation for choking at big events.
“Of course, it’s going to be tough to beat China,” Hamm said with a touch of mischief. “I think almost every other team out there we’ll be competitive with, and if China falls like they normally do, then who knows?”
But for now the real pressure is on the men Hamm hopes will be his teammates next August in Beijing, including Morrison resident Alexander Artemev and Denver native Guillermo Alvarez.
If they don’t perform well at the world championships Sept. 2-9 in Stuttgart, Germany, Hamm won’t get to defend his Olympic title. The top 12 teams in Stuttgart qualify for the Olympics. The U.S. men finished 13th at worlds last year.
The U.S. men won a silver medal as a team at the 2004 Olympics, but none of those men were on the 2006 worlds team, making the U.S. the only team there with no one who competed in Athens.
The team going to Stuttgart also has no Olympic experience. Hamm and his twin, Morgan, are just now gearing up their training after concentrating on their studies at Ohio State the past three years.
“Making the Olympic Games is the main focus,” Artemev said Friday night after finishing fourth in the all-around at the U.S. championships. “I think we have a lot of strong guys on this team. I know what happened last year isn’t going to happen again. We learned from that experience.”
Men’s gymnastics represents one of the most interesting story lines in the U.S. buildup to Beijing. American swimmers and track and field athletes figure to be strong, as always. The women gymnasts should be solid again as well. But the U.S. men are a big unknown.
“I was right on the edge of making the ’04 team, so I had the experience of being around that last group and now being in this new group,” said David Durante, a Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center athlete who won the all-around Friday night. “I can tell you it’s very different.
“The last group was made up primarily of superstars in our sport, the guys who come around once in a lifetime, people like Paul and Blaine (Wilson) and Jason (Gatson) and Brett (McClure). This group is made up of younger guys with a little bit less experience. I think the outcome can still be the same, even though it’s not quite the same potential.”
People around USA Gymnastics say the U.S. men had a run of bad luck at worlds last year, including an untimely case of food poisoning that weakened rings standout Kevin Tan.
“The media and the people back home, all they get to see is 13th place and they’re like, ‘OK, we’re out of it,”‘ Durante said. “We were a routine away from being in the top eight and two routines from being in the top six. It really wasn’t as bad as maybe it looked in the final result standings.”
Hamm backs up Durante’s assessment.
“It seemed to us last year was sort of a worst case scenario,” Hamm said. “They’re a top eight team. We’re confident the job will get done.”
They figure to be significantly better than top eight with Hamm on the team next year. Wilson also is expected to come back, although it’s unclear how much he will be able to help at age 32.
“Blaine will be tough,” men’s program director Ron Brant said. “At 32, coming back is a lot harder than the Hamms coming back at 25. They’re prime for men’s gymnastics, those are prime years. They just make us a much stronger team.”
Brant said Artemev, the 21-year-old son of a former Soviet gymnast, is on the verge of greatness. Artemev won a bronze medal in pommel horse at last year’s worlds.
Alvarez finished second in the all-around Friday and won three medals at last month’s Pan Am championships, including a bronze in all-around, but he concedes the return of the Hamms might make it more difficult for him to make the Olympic team.
“I have to look at it as, I’m making that team,” Alvarez said. “I’m doing what I can to make that team, working on my difficulty, working on my consistency and my cleanliness. If I’m able to maintain that, if I can get higher starting difficulty on vault, especially, and on high bar, that will help my chances immensely.”
