John Orozco, the U.S. men's breakout star of 2011, got his Olympic year off to the right start Thursday night in Las Vegas, turning in five clean routines to advance to Saturday's Winter Cup final at the top of the leaderboard.
Orozco, who qualified for all-around and high bar finals at the 2011 Worlds, had the top all-around score but after a fall on high bar, finished slightly below afternoon session leader Chris Brooks in the U.S. points system. It was that points system, and not the all-around standings, that determined which 42 gymnasts advanced to Saturday's final.
That likely matters little to Orozco or to Brooks, whose positions on the national team (and, almost as importantly, frontrunners among American Olympic hopefuls) are basically secure. Ditto for reigning U.S. champion Danell Leyva, who blew his pommel horse routine (11.55 for 60th place) and took a freak fall on high bar did well on everything else to end in third place.
The most distinctive story of who didn't advance was 2004 Olympic champion Paul Hamm, who was competing in his first meet since breaking his hand on parallel bars at the 2008 U.S. Championships and tearing his labrum and rotator cuff 12 months ago.
Hamm had an all around rough day, performing a clean vault but falling during his pommel horse and floor routines and breaking form in several places on parallel bars. It was one of the low performances of Hamm's career, which, to be frank, has been marked by an awful lot of highs since he and twin brother Morgan took the U.S. scene by storm in the run up to the 2000 Olympics. In a post-meet, Hamm graded his performance a solid D.
"I'm not happy," he said in an interview with Gymnastike. "I'm frustrated. Today was very frustrating. I know I could have come out here and hit all these routines. That's what's frustrating, but that's just how it goes sometimes."
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