DALLAS — Most guys don’t keep an eye on the scoreboard, especially in a meet like this.
Jonathan Horton does.
Because of that, he got to see his name rise from 22nd place to first Wednesday night, as he took the lead at the halfway point of the U.S. gymnastics championships.
“I like to know where I am,” Horton said. “I see myself in 22nd place and I get fired up.”
Horton fell behind because of a fall from the pommel horse early in the night. He overcame that mistake and took the lead from defending national champion David Sender with a typically solid high bar routine at the end.
Horton, the defending Olympic silver medalist on high bar, scored 15.9 to finish the evening with 91.25 points. That was 0.65 ahead of Sender, who closed his night the same way Horton opened his — with a fall off the pommel.
Tim McNeill was in third, another 2.1 points back, while Wesley Haagensen of Colorado Springs was tied for fourth with Danell Leyva of Miami at 88.35.
Olympian Joey Hagerty fell off rings at almost the exact time Sender slipped from the horse and dropped from second to ninth place.
The men’s final round is Friday, with the women set to open today, when Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin will compete on bars and beam.
In the junior men’s competition, Jordan Valdez, an incoming senior at Monarch High School who competes for Xtreme Altitude in Lafayette, won the high bar competition with a 13.7 and finished sixth overall, earning a spot on the U.S. junior team.
