US Men's Gymnastics 2016 Olympic Trials: Meet Team USA's Rio Hopefuls
The U.S. Olympic Trials for men's gymnastics are this week in St. Louis, and by Saturday night, we'll know the full team bound for Brazil.
Five members and three alternates will be part of Team USA, which will compete for individual and squad medals in Rio de Janeiro in August.
Here's all you need to know about the guys fighting for a spot.
Event Info
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The men's Olympic trials will take place over two days, with the five members of the 2016 Olympic team announced after the competition concludes Saturday night.
Day 1 will be live streamed on NBCOlympics.com from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday and will air live on NBC Sports Network from 8:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
NBCOlympics.com will live stream Day 2 from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, and NBC will air the day's events live from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Familiar Faces from London
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Jake Dalton
Jake Dalton hasn't had the easiest road to an Olympics repeat.
The University of Oklahoma product underwent surgery for a partially torn labrum last September and missed the 2015 national championships. But he recovered in time to win the floor exercise and the vault en route to a third-place all-around finish at the 2016 national event earlier this month in Hartford, Connecticut.
The time off and the timing of his return to full health could be a blessing in disguise if he gets to Brazil.
Danell Leyva
Four years removed from a surprising all-around bronze medal at the 2012 Games in London, Danell Leyva returns as a 24-year-old veteran vying for another unexpected spot on the U.S. team.
He was just 16th at the national championships and needed an at-large berth to even get to the trials.
In fact, his highlights since 2012 have been few—including a bronze on the parallel bars at the 2015 U.S. championships and a silver on the horizontal bar at the 2015 worlds. Leyva knows the way to the medals stand, but he's not a cinch to get past St. Louis.
Sam Mikulak
An Olympic also-ran four years ago at age 19, Sam Mikulak goes to St. Louis as a prohibitive favorite to reach Rio de Janeiro as the premier American medal hopeful.
He won the all-around gold at the national championships for the fourth consecutive year and was a silver medalist on both the pommel horse and parallel bars.
A teammate from London, Jonathan Horton, is expecting big things this week.
"Sam, in my opinion, is 99 percent on the team. He’s almost [a] lock," Horton told Nick McCarvel of the Team USA trials' official website. "He’s a leader and he has intangibles; he’s a competitor. He’s very mature in everything he’s doing, and yet, I don’t think he has peaked. He makes weird mistakes here and there, so I want to see him put it all together."
John Orozco
Like Dalton, John Orozco has spent as much recent time in the trainer's room as the arena.
Orozco tore his right Achilles tendon for the second time a year ago—five years after the first injury and three years after he'd suffered an ACL tear in his left knee.
Per Chros McDougall of Team USA's official website, Orozco deemed himself 85 percent healthy before the spring competition season began. He took bronze on the horizontal bar at the U.S. championships in early June. That could mean, like Dalton, he'll peak at the right time to earn his pass to a second straight Olympics.
Eyeing a 1st Olympics Bid
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Chris Brooks
The first of the 2012 Olympic alternates, Chris Brooks was second to Mikulak in the all-around competition at the U.S. nationals in Hartford and has never finished lower than fifth in the meet since 2010.
He won the parallel bars and was second on the horizontal bar there and could be a great pommel horse routine away from locking up his first Summer Games trip.
Steven Legendre
An elder statesman at age 27, Steven Legendre has shown the potential to come up big in spotlight events during a prolonged national career.
He was an alternate to the 2012 Olympic team. Legendre then won the U.S. national title in the floor exercise the following year before capturing silver at the worlds in the vault. His most recent national title came last season in the floor exercise, and a good week in St. Louis will put him squarely in the Rio mix.
Alex Naddour
Pommel-horse guru Alex Naddour suffered as an alternate while the U.S. team made repeated mistakes on the apparatus at the London Games. Now he's rededicated himself to securing a berth since the arrival of his infant daughter four months ago.
He took a surprising fall during the pommel horse at the 2016 nationals and failed to make the podium. However, since 2011, he's won the national title in the event four times.
Donnell Whittenburg
Donnell Whittenburg is a man without an accurate category. He's the only American to make the all-around finals in the last two world championships. He was also the halfway all-around leader at the U.S. nationals before tumbling to fifth—so he's neither an absolute lock nor a true long shot.
Call it a hunch, but if any of the men who've not been an Olympic team member or an alternate make it through to Rio, it'll be Whittenburg.
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Dark Horses to Watch
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Marvin Kimble
To get a ticket to Rio, Marvin Kimble will have to bridge the gap between respectable and dominant. He was the fourth-best performer on the pommel horse at the U.S. championships this year and couldn't provide a premier performance in any other event.
That'll need to change if he's to be a factor.
Akash Modi
He's just 21 years old, but Akash Modi has a sense of competitive timing.
The Stanford University product has won individual NCAA titles in all-around, parallel bars and the high bar. He also jumped three spots—from sixth to third—on the parallel bars with a superb second-round routine that put him behind only Brooks and Mikulak at the national meet.
Paul Ruggeri III
Like Kimble, Paul Ruggeri was somewhere between pedestrian and memorable in his all-around output in Hartford, tying for eighth place.
That won't be good enough in St. Louis. But if the New Yorker can parlay his early-June success on the horizontal bar into a consistent series of placements across the board, he could be a surprise.
Rest of the Field
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Donothan Bailey
Bailey's the reigning U.S. pommel-horse champion has little international experience, having competed in the 2011 Pan American Games and the 2015 World University Games.
C.J. Maestas
Maestas is a four-time national medalist on the still rings, including silver in 2011 and 2016 and bronze in 2014 and 2015.
Sean Melton
Melton is a native Floridian who attends Ohio State and was a bronze medalist in both the all-around and high bar in the 2014 NCAA championships.
Yul Moldauer
His status as the reigning NCAA all-around champion and a fifth-place finisher at the U.S. nationals make him, at age 19, an early pick for 2020.
Kanji Oyama
The University of Oklahoma product has no international acumen to speak of, but he's won team medals on the NCAA level with the Sooners. He's also taken silvers in the all-around and floor exercise (2016) and a bronze in the vault (2015).
Eddie Penev
Perhaps the academic star of the trials, given his architectural design major at Stanford University, Penev is the reigning bronze medalist in the floor exercise from the recent 2016 U.S. national meet.
Brandon Wynn
Wynn is a 27-year-old with a resume full of competitive experience, highlighted by a bronze on the still rings at the 2013 world championships and national titles in the event 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014.
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