John Geddert: Jordyn Wieber 'sent a message' to the world

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- John Geddert summed it up succinctly: "She did exactly what we came here to do," he said of his protegee Jordyn Wieber, who won her first senior U.S. title here Saturday night.

Sixteen-year-old Wieber told reporters she would spend her Sunday on a well-deserved shopping trip at the nearby Mall of America before heading back home to Michigan. It will be a short reprieve after an intense week of competition that included unexpected falls and a kneecap injury to Rebecca Bross, who trained with Geddert at Twistars Gymnastics before moving to Texas to train at WOGA.

Geddert said he and Wieber will now focus on ironing out the little details of her routines in order to get ready for October's World Championships. "We haven't even tried to stick landings yet because that's really taxing on the body," he added. Geddert also addressed the possibility of a second vault to go with Wieber's impressive Amanar, his reaction to Bross's vault and how he planned to fete Wieber's victory.

On what he and Jordyn Wieber will be working on now:

"Obviously consistency on beam, that's going to be important, because you do the beam routine she did the other day in team prelims [at Worlds], not only does your team suffer, but you might not make all-around finals. So, you know, we need to be a little bit more consistent on our stuff. But we're fine. We haven't even been trying to stick landings yet because that's really taxing on the body and that can really raise our scores a little bit, especially like sticking a vault. Right now we're just worrying about safe landings. That's something coming down the stretch we've got to really improve on, and we'll be focusing on that."

On a possible second vault for Wieber:

"We've played with it forever. She just really does not go forward well. I mean, she has other vaults, but they're all backward. And it was getting very frustrating and time consuming we felt. Shawn Johnson went through the same kind of thing -- great vaulter, really just couldn't get that forward thing going."

"She's been there before with the two American Cup victories. She's one of the most grounded children I've ever met. She's very humble. And her parents are well versed in athletics. Her mom was a scholarship athlete, dad's the athletic type, and I think they will keep her grounded if she begins to get off path. They're a very disciplined family. Integrity and sportsmanship is very big to them. So I think she'll stay grounded and you know, this meet's going to be behind her tomorrow."

What he said before beam:

"I told her that she had the meet won, and obviously, if she was feeling pressure there was none, to go out there and send a message to the world that she's a good beamworker. Because the first day she didn't send that message. And we talked about the all-around score -- we really wanted to post a 61 today to really send a message. 61's the gem. That can compete with anybody, and that's what we discussed. Which -- I couldn't ask for any better response."

On how he got Wieber to be more expressive and artistic:

"A lot of extra dance. She went up to three hours of dance a week. We've never had that before. When she was that little robot kid at 10 and 11 years old, she had very little dance training. So I give a lot of credit to my wife and our other dance instructor. We had a special choreographer come in who is absolutely phenomenal. His name is Dominic Zito, and he is absolutely amazing. His attention to detail...I was really, really captivated by that routine."

On whether he thinks Rebecca Bross's injury affected her:

"Rebecca's a very good friend of hers. She immediately went to a state of sadness. We had a little talk -- 'let's bring it back to focus, so something like that doesn't happen to you.' They trained in the same gym at one time, even though Rebecca was at a little bit higher level."

On Rebecca Bross as a child:

"She's the same type of kid she is now. Very intense, work-a-holic [he pronounced each word slowly]. Nobody could outwork her. Nobody could out-condition her. She was that type of kid. Just blue collar."

On how he is going to celebrate his pupil's win:

"Heavily. I'm hoping St. Paul is ready."

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