The US Senior Nationals is one of the most important competitions of the year for elite gymnasts. By this time, elites have perfected their routines enough to be at the start of their peak for the season. The goal: To impress Martha Karolyi sufficiently enough to be invited to subsequent National Team camps at the Texas ranch as a first step to making the World Championship team. In Olympic years, it is most exciting, as it’s the final competition before Olympic Trials, where only a select number of gymnasts qualify and are invited to compete for a spot on the Olympic team.

To ramp up our excitement even more in advance of the 2014 P&G Championships, I have put together a series of posts reflecting on National Championship competitions over the past five years, starting with 2009!
 

The year after the Olympics is always an interesting one, for several reasons. First of all, the International Gymnastics Federation has just reviewed the Code of Points and (usually) decides to make some changes. Gymnasts are forced to adapt their routines to fit the new standards, and it can understandably take time to do so. Given this, scores tend to be on the lower side, as gymnasts are not practiced enough under the new code. In addition, since it is right after an Olympic year, many of the existing Olympians have not yet returned to competitions, and so we tend to see a lot of newbies on the playing field - in particular, new seniors just up from the junior ranks.

2009 was no exception to the rule. The Code of Points had just been changed, to reflect a couple of new rules, one of the most notable being the sticking of tumbling passes. Gymnasts were forced to say goodbye to the days of lunging out of tumbling passes - they were now required to stick their tumbling passes with two feet together upon landing. Interestingly, quite a few members of the 2008 Olympic team were already back in action and competed at the 2009 Nationals: Bridget Sloan, Samantha Peszek and Nastia Liukin. Sloan was the only one to compete in the All-Around, while Peszek competed all events except bars, and Liukin competed only beam.

We also saw the emergence of a new star: Rebecca Bross, a new senior from WOGA, coached by Valeri Liukin. While we saw how powerful and strong Bross’s gymnastics were, we also saw how unpredictable it was, with a fall on her beam dismount on Day 1 and a wipeout on bars on Day 2.

The interesting thing about the 2009 Nationals was how close of a race it was for first place. Rebecca Bross, Ivana Hong and Bridget Sloan all performed exceptionally well over the two days of competition, and were very close in the standings going in to the last rotation - vault. To make it even more interesting, they all performed the same vault, a double twisting Yurchenko. While both Hong and Bross stuck their landings (which is not all that common!) it was Bridget Sloan who had had the initial lead and was also the most high flying with good form. She ended up coming out on top as the National Champion.

 

Read part 2 on the 2010 Championships here!