“You’re gonna have to stop me from hitting a routine, no matter how bad it is,” Haagensen said. “I’m gonna fight to the end.”
The race for the 2012 London Olympics started fast and furious in Dallas, where six men
would be selected for the 2009 World
Championships (individual competition), also in
London. And with the absence of four members
of the 2008 Olympic team—Kevin Tan, Justin
Spring, Raj Bhavsar and Sasha Artemev (
shoulder surgery rehab)—some relatively new names
peppered the results page by the end of the two-day meet.
Tim McNeill, who helps coach at Cal-Berkeley
now, looked amazing in places at this competition, and he won parallel bars outright (perfect
peach handstand). “I feel incredible,” McNeill
said. “This is a dream come true, and I haven’t
been preparing all-around the last few years all
that much. So getting back into the all-around
was very hard, but it all paid off.”
That McNeill is also a pommel horse wizard
( 6. 7 difficulty) can only help too, since that’s
been a weak event for the U.S. program. “Being
good on pommel horse really does help in terms
of being picked for [team] selection,” he said.
26
“And it just helps that much more that I now
show that I can do all-around.”
McNeill’s not alone in that regard. The men’s
meet was considerably more competitive than
the women’s, and featured twice as many gymnasts. Three men—two still in their teens—
finished less than a fall behind McNeill: Wesley
Haagensen, 23; Kyle Bunthuwong, 19; and
Danell Leyva, 17.
Haagensen went 10 for 12 to earn third, and
has no glaring weak event (excellent Takemoto
to undergrips on high bar). After completing his
NCAA career at Illinois, Haagensen decided to
immerse himself in the sport at the U.S. Olympic
Training Center in Colorado Springs. “I give all
the credit to the training center, because without
that move I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “It really
turned my career around.”
Haagensen has an ideal build for gymnastics,
and also seems to possess the right competitive
instincts. “You’re gonna have to stop me from
hitting a routine, no matter how bad it is,” he
said. “I’m gonna fight to the end.”
Former Illinois gymnast Wesley Haagensen
(above left) credited his recent move to
the USOTC in Colorado Springs for his
third-place finish, and Cal-Berkeley’s Glen
Ishino (above) was steady for sixth.
Bunthuwong (Cal-Berkeley) achieved fourth
place via a different route. Impeccable execution
netted him the highest E-scores of the field—
nobody else matched his 10 marks of 9.0 or better—and he had adequate substance beneath the
style. His best apparatus both days (not counting
vault, which generally scores much higher than
the other events) was parallel bars, where he
scored 9. 35 and 9. 45 with 5. 8 of difficulty. (For
the record, the highest non-vault E-score went to
junior Christopher Turner of WCOGA, a 9. 5 on
parallel bars.)
While Bunthuwong impressed with textbook
technique, Leyva, fifth, simply threw every trick
in the book. Or so it seemed. As a result, he’s
really fun to watch, as is his excitable stepfa-ther/coach, Yin Alvarez.
