Jun 24, 2008

Stanford grads get shunned

U.S. Olympic team snubs Sender completely; Durante an alternate

From Staff and Wire Reports

If you think computers have messed up the way college football determines its championship contenders, take a look at the U.S. Olympic men's gymnastics team, which relied on computer simulations to pick the group that will compete in August at the Beijing Olympics.

That procedure has resulted in national all-around champion David Sender and last year's national all-around champion David Durante - both Stanford grads - being left off the six-member team. Sender also was not named among the three alternates.

Sender missed both days of the Olympic Trials this week in Philadelphia after spraining his ankle in a fluke training accident. His petition to be part of the team was denied. He was working on the high bar Wednesday when he took a harmless fall. The bar continued to shake afterward, and he jumped up to steady it. But when he came back down, only the top half of his right foot landed on the thick mat and his foot rolled over. Sender fell to the ground in pain, grabbing his ankle. Tests Wednesday showed Sender's ankle isn't broken and there are no torn ligaments.

In Saturday's finals, Durante had the day's most impressive performance, according to an Associated Press story. He missed the all-around title by a half-point.

The Olympic team will be Paul Hamm, Morgan Hamm, Jonathan Horton, Kevin Tan, Joseph Hagerty and Justin Spring. Alternates will be Sasha Artemev, Raj Bhavsar and Durante. Paul Hamm is recovering from a broken hand, but he says he is ahead of schedule in his recovery and should be healthy in time for Beijing. All of the athletes have to show they're physically ready during a July 13-22 training camp in Colorado Springs, Colo.

"It was a very difficult decision," said Ron Brant, the national team coordinator. "We were trying to come up with the team with the highest consistency we could find."

Added Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics: "Our goal is to go to Beijing and do our very best to win. That's the way this team has been constructed. We're looking forward to giving every other country in the world a run for their money."

The selection committee took the scores from four days of competitions - two days at the national championships and two days of Olympic trials - and used a computer to come up with the team that could put up the highest scores in team finals, when three gymnasts compete on each event and all three scores count.

The computer spit out 40 different scenarios, Brant said, and the committee looked at another nine. The weighted scores, with more importance placed on the results from trials, were particularly key, as was consistency.

"We want a team that can go hit routines," Brant said. "If you're strong under the most pressure, that's what we were looking for. ... Some people rose to the occasion, some people didn't."

An AP story announcing the team selection did not mention Sender at all and said the biggest surprise was Artemev only being an alternate.

Sender knew the selection committee wasn't likely to take two injured gymnasts who needed to petition for spots in the Olympic competition, which begins Aug. 9.

"If they decided between Paul and I, they take Paul," Sender said Wednesday. "It does kind of hurt a little bit that he's also trying to petition. They're not going to be willing to risk taking two guys they don't know 100 percent where they're at."

Sender's coach, Thom Glielmi, believes the recent Stanford grad should be ready to go in two weeks.

"With the previous injury, he was tumbling under two weeks and doing full routines in three weeks," said Glielmi, who also coached Sender at Stanford.