After a fall, Mattie Larson rebounds to win 2010 CoverGirl Classic

  All-around champion Mattie Larson performs on floor. Photo/Greg Long

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The lesson of the 2010 CoverGirl Classic is an old one: it isn't how you start, but how you finish.

The older gymnasts who performed at this meet seemed to have learned it better. Mattie Larson didn't look like the winner-to-be halfway through Saturday's meet, the last qualifier to the August's U.S. Championships. The Los Angeles based-gymnast fell on her 2.5 twisting beam dismount during her first routine of the night and then stepped out of bounds landing a double pike on floor during her second.

But Larson, 18, hung on. She looked better with every event she did, as though she was getting used to this competiton thing again. At the end, aided by falls from people who didn't finish as well as they had started, Larson won the all-around at the last big meet before the 2010 U.S. Championships, besting Cincinnati gymnasts Amanda Jetter, second, and Cassie Whitcomb, fourth, both of whom had large errors on beam during their last routines of the night.

It's not how you start, it's how you finish.

Mackenzie Caquatto, another beam victim, finished third. Beam was the event that troubled everyone, even the more seasoned competitors, in Chicago. World all-around silver medalist Rebecca Bross stumbled on her full turn in a sit position early in her routine and then crashed her Arabian double front dismount. NCAA vault champion Vanessa Zamarripa skinned the side of her right leg when she came off on a combination that ended in a layout to two feet.

Fifth was pre-meet favorite Alexandra Raisman, who actually made her beam routine and would have finished higher had she not attempted an Amanar vault and badly underrotated it, landing in a concerning position for her left knee. To her credit, Raisman looked better on bars than she has in the past, though she's certainly not going to be competing on them for Team USA at any international competition anytime soon.

Make no mistake -- Larson's beam and floor were good routines until the end, especially coming from a gymnast who sprained both of her ankles last summer and didn't compete for six months. The CoverGirl Classic was Larson's comeback from a career that had barely taken off -- considered too young and inexperienced to be a member of the 2008 Olympic team, by 2010 people were wondering if she might now be too old.

But Larson, who has deferred her enrollment at UCLA while she pursues a spot on the 2012 Olympic team, proved she's come back with more maturity and even bigger skills. Her double twisting Yurchenko vault, surprising for someone of her stature in 2008, is more powerful now. She's added a double layout on floor and engages the crowd with her dance.

It's not how you start, it's how you finish.

Her gym-mate Samantha Shapiro wasn't as lucky in her comeback attempt. Shapiro, who has been sidelined with a leg injury since 2009, landed lock-legged on vault attempting a 1.5 twisting Yurchenko. She saluted the judges before sitting down on the mat and cradling her left knee, which medical staff helped her straighten. Shapiro finished by being helped off the podium. She looked like she was able to walk under her own power, albeit gingerly.

Jetter, a first-year senior, performed calmly leading up to balance beam, where she nailed her toughest skills, including a standing back tuck with a full twist, a standing Arabian and a double Arabian dismount, but looked tentative on her jumps and grabbed the beam on a straddle jump with a 3/4 twist. Whitcomb, who does an unusual release move on bars called a Ricna, led the competition after three events but came off the beam altogether on a side aerial halfway through her routine.

By far the biggest comeback story of the night was 2008 Olympian Alicia Sacramone, 22, who took this it's-not-how-you-start-thing to another level. Sacramone didn't like the way her career finished in Beijing. She was pale as a ghost after falling from beam and following up with a fall on floor during the team final in Beijing. Then she was jilted out of a bronze medal on vault. It was a hell of a way to finish a career. No wonder Sacramone decided she wanted to come back.

In Chicago, Sacramone proved that taking a couple years off to enjoy your Olympic success doesn't necessarily hinder performance. In her first routine in a meet since the Games, Sacramone faced down the balance beam -- how ironic. Although there were a few small wobbles and a couple landings that weren't quite square, Sacramone didn't fall. In fact, she posted the highest score of the meet on the event.

She was even more impressive on vault, where her handspring Rudi (a laid-out front flip with 1.5 twists) was even more powerful than it was two years ago and left her boyfriend, Denver Broncos quarterback Brady Quinn, laughing with awe and pride. For an encore, Sacramone threw a full-twisting Yurchenko, a twist shy of what she's capable of, percieved as a wink to the gymnastics audience that she's got more up her sleeve. She won the vault event as well.

Sacramone, who vaulted after Shapiro, and then joined Universal Sports commentators Tim Daggett and Tasha Schwikert, said that Shapiro had hyperextended her knee but that the injury did not appear serious. As for her teammate Raisman, who sat down her Amanar, "her back's a little tight, but she's OK," she said.

Bross, who also tied for a bronze medal on bars at last year's World Championships, performed solidly to win that event. World Champion Bridget Sloan, who has performed only at the Pacific Rim Championships so far this year, gave few clues as to her status going into the U.S. Championships in Hartford three weeks from now, where she will be defending the title she won in 2009.

Sloan was decent but not brilliant on uneven bars, where she struggled on a low-bar stalder combination, much the same as she did in Melbourne, Australia in April. She did score 14.7 on balance beam, traditionally one of her weaker events, leaving a positive ending impression on National Team Coordinator Martha Karolyi, who hinted to commentators before the meet that she'd like Sloan to "pick it up a bit," Daggett said.

Photo/Greg Long

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