The final epee grand prix event is this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for both the men and women. Five women and five men will compete for the US this weekend. The top 16 fencers for both genders have gotten a bye from preliminaries and will begin on Saturday (for the women) and Sunday (for the men) in the table of 64. No US men have a top 16 seed but Kelley Hurley and Katharine Holmes have seeds for the women. The preliminary pools and knockout rounds take place on Friday.
The Americans came close to the top spot in La Fleche Wallonne Feminine but had to settle for the next two as Anna Van Der Breggen held off a challenge from Evelyn Stevens to win by eight seconds with Megan Guarnier third 22 seconds back. Carmen Small was the third American in the top 25 with a 12th place finish 53 seconds back. Kristabel Doebel-Hickok had her first finish of the year, a 54th place finish, though this was only her second race. Stevens’ second place finish was tied for the best finish by an American this year.
On the men’s side only one American cracked the top 50 as Peter Stetina tied his season high with a 35th place finish, 40 seconds behind the winner. Chad Haga had his best finish of the year in only his second race in 103rd while Lawson Craddock was 121st and over seven minutes behind the winner.
On the men’s side the next race is the 157.2 mile Liege-Bastogne-Liege on Saturday. The women will head to Asia as the Tour of Chongming Island in China will be held from May 6th through the 8th. Megan Guarnier sits fourth on the women’s tour after six races.
Previous UCI World Tour Coverage:
La Fleche Wallonne Preview
Matthew Emmons and Michael McPhail both advanced from the elimination round of the prone 50m rifle competition easily by finishing in the top 56. David Higgins on the other hand did not shooting just a 614.3 and finishing 32nd in his relay. It was the first time this year shooting in the World Cup and he’ll need to improve some more as he heads for the Olympics. Emmons and McPhail will finish the event on Thursday with the qualification round and the final.
In the women’s 25m pistol Enkelejda Shehaj Bekurti, also competing in her first World Cup event of the year, scored a 285 in the precision round and a 280 in the rapid fire round to score a 565 and finish 45th, 17 points behind the final qualifying spot.
Thursday along with the end of the men’s 50m prone rifle the women’s 50m rifle 3 position event will have their elimination round. Competing for the US will be Sarah Scherer, Virginia Thrasher, and Sarah Beard. Both Beard and Scherer made the final in Bangkok while Thrasher is making her first World Cup appearance this year. If she can continue the incredible shooting that won her an Olympic spot in this event she could be a threat to make the final as well.
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Day 5 Update
With just one day of shooting in the second portion of the Olympic Archery Trials remaining and the cut down to eight having occurred there is some real separation developing for the Olympic spots. On the men’s side Brady Ellison keeps improving as he now leads Zachary Garrett by 5.5 points. Both are currently solidly in the Olympic spots. Sean McLaughlin continued to fall down the standings as his low scoring day (he went just 2-5 in matches and had a poor average score) dropped him from third to sixth. Into third after a strong day is Jake Kaminski who is seven points behind Garrett but leads fourth place Jacob Wukie by 4.75 points.
On the women’s side Mackenzie Brown now has a 9.5 point lead as she has the best day in the field and Ariel Gibilaro passed Lanola Pritchard for second place. Ultimately second/third won’t matter, both spots will either go to the Olympics or not but fourth place has no chance to reach the Olympics and that is where Hye Youn Park sits only two points behind Pritchard. Khatuna Lorig had another rough day and now is seventh and 8.75 points behind third place.
Thursday will feature a team simulation event that will provide a qualifying round score (top score is worth eight points), seven more head-to-head matches worth two points each, and the average scores from those matches will be used to award more points.
Previous Olympic Archery Trials Coverage:
Preview
Day 1 Update
Day 2 Update
While the Craftsbury A team hasn’t reached the Olympics yet they took an important first step in that direction on Tuesday at the Olympic Rowing Trials. The team led by Ben Davison and featuring 2012 Olympian Peter Graves along with Ben Dann and John Graves weren’t quite as quick as Sunday but their time of 6:05.09 was still almost five seconds ahead of the runner-up California A team and advanced them into an Olympic qualifying event in Lucerne, Switzerland from May 22nd to the 25th.
There are only two spots available in Lucerne (only 12 teams total reach the Olympics) so it’ll be a big challenge but they’ll have their chance to go for it. Their time will certainly need to improve as the qualifying times in 2012 were under 5:50.
Wednesday is a practice day at the Olympic Rowing Trials before time trials on Thursday will trim the field in one events and arrange the heats in others. The men’s single sculls field is 21-deep so they will trim to the top 14 on Thursday through the time trial. In the field for that event is 2012 Olympian Ken Jurkowski. The other events (women’s single sculls, men’s and women’s double sculls, men’s and women’s lightweight double sculls) will just feature time trials. The US has qualified for the Olympics in the three women’s events and the lightweight men’s double sculls. The men’s single and double sculls are both trying to advance to the same Olympic qualifying event the men’s quadruple sculls team will be competing at.
Also starting on Thursday will be the Paralympic Rowing Trials portion of the week. There are two competitors vying for the spot in both the men’s and women’s arms and shoulders single sculls category.
Previous Olympic Rowing Trials Coverage:
Preview
Day 1 Update
While qualification for the US in men’s trampoline gymnastics was without too much sweat on the women’s side the US made it.. but just barely. With the top seven qualifying Charlotte Drury finished 11th. That wasn’t the end of the road though because the top three were already qualified and Russia went fourth and fifth and only one spot could be awarded to any country. That meant the final spot came down to a battle between Drury and Marine Jurbert of France. Drury was behind Jurbert on her first routine after poorer execution but the difference maker ended up being the difficult and a 1.5 point harder routine for Drury led to her finishing 1.025 points ahead. Drury may have missed the final but the US being in the Olympics was a more important accomplishment.
On the men’s side the US had both Jeffrey Gluckstein and Logan Dooley finish high enough to qualify for Rio though the US was limited to qualifying just one slot. Gluckstein and Dooley were sixth and seventh to make the eight-man final. In the final Gluckstein was fifth with a 57.435 and Dooley was sixth with a 55.955.
The US doesn’t have anyone competing in the rhythmic gymnastics events so this is the end of the event for the US with the important Olympic qualification locked up. The next big event for the US is June 3rd-5th in Hartford, Connecticut.
Previous Gymnastics Coverage:
Rio Test Event Preview
Day 1 Update
Day 3 Update
The US finally won their first medal of the ISSF World Cup competition in Rio on Tuesday and it was at the hands of an Olympian who will be competing there in four months. Walton Eller posted a joint third best qualifying score of 137 to reach the finals. In the semifinal he was a bit off at 25, tied for his worst round of the day, but won a shoot-off to get into the bronze medal match. There he beat Antonino Barilla of Italy 28-23 to win the medal. The 28 was the best score of anyone in the finals. Joshua Richmond nearly made it two Americans in the finals as he scored a 136 and tied for sixth. He lost the qualification shoot-off 11-10 to Andreas Loew of Germany who went on to lose the shoot-off Eller won to get into the bronze medal match. Derek Haldeman gave the US three in the top 25 with a 25th place finish .
The 50m men’s pistol event had two Americans thick in the race for the finals. Will Brown came up just short with a 557, two points back of the 559 of the final qualifier, and finished 12th. Brown did shoot a 98 in series 4 which was tied for the second best series of the day. Jay Shi did make the finals with a 560 after a strong 96 in series 6 put him into the top eight. Nickolaus Mowrer finished 44th with a 544. In the final Shi had one of the lower first stage scores at 51.6 (seventh of eight) and while he held off one opponent he was knocked out after two rounds and finished seventh.
With no events carrying over to Wednesday competition begins in the 50m prone rifle as the field is narrowed in an elimination round which all three Americans will be expected to survive. Matthew Emmons, David Higgins, and Michael McPhail will be competing. Both Higgins and McPhail are 2016 Olympians in this event. McPhail was fourth in Bangkok while Emmons was seventh. The entire women’s 25m pistol event will be held as well with Enkelejda Shehaj Bekurti competing for the US in the event where she will be an Olympian.
On the first day of round robin matches at the US Olympic Archery Trials Brady Ellison went 7-1, best of the day, and passed Zachary Garrett to take a half point lead. Sean McLaughlin recovered him form enough to stay in third and has a half point lead over Jake Kaminski and point and a quarter over Jacob Wukie. The battle for the final spot to make the cut into the top eight is tight with Victor Wunderle’s 3.25 point lead over Collin Klimitchek cut to just a point and a quarter.
On the women’s side Mackenzie Brown still holds a five point lead over Lanola Pritchard. Pritchard now holds a 2.5 point lead over Ariel Gibilaro for third. Khatuna Lorig is seeing her hopes of going back to the Olympics fading as a 2-6 day saw her fall from fourth to sixth. She trails the final potential Olympic spot (remember only one is guaranteed, the next two are possible Olympic spots) by 6.25 points.
Wednesday will feature the final seven head-to-head matches before the field is cut to eight.
Previous Olympic Archery Trials Coverage:
Preview
Day 1 Update
Wednesday is the next stop in both the UCI World Tour and the UCI Women’s World Tour as the two will both race in Belgium at La Fleche Wallonne. Both will start and end in the same place but the men will cover 121.8 miles in their race while the women cover 85.13 miles. The two top Americans in the women’s field are Megan Guarnier and Carmen Small who both have top five finishes already this year. Guarnier was second in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio and was fourth in the most recent race, The Tour of Flanders. Small was fifth in the Gent-Wevelgem race. One rider, Amber Nelson, is making her first appearance of the year while Kristabel Doebel-Hickok is trying to finish a race for the first time after not finishing the season opening Strade Bianche.
On the men’s side the top competitor is Lawson Craddock who was ninth in last race, the Tour of the Basque Country, and 16th in his only other race this season, the Paris-Nice race. Larry Warbasse, Nathan Brown, Peter Stetina, and Alex Howes all are in the field as well having finished races in the top 50 this season.
Previous UCI World Tour Coverage:
Amstel Gold Race Recap
Tour of Flanders Recap
John Orozco may have been eighth in qualifying on Saturday for the pommel horse but he stepped up when it mattered. A 15.066 from Orozco was enough to get him second place in the Rio Test Event on Monday. His second place finish was matched later in the day when Jacob Dalton placed second in the vault after averaging a 14.853.
Orozco was back in competition later in the day on the parallel bars but only scored a 15.433 and finished fifth, 0.3 back of the second place finisher. He then bounced back with his second top-three of the day as he finished third in the horizontal bar with a 15.366.
The artistic gymnastics competition might be finished but the trampoline competition is about to begin. Logan Dooley and Jeffrey Gluckstein will be competing for the US on the men’s side while Charlotte Drury is in the women’s field. All will be trying to get the US a spot in the Olympics as they have yet to qualify. On the men’s side the top six qualify while it’s the top seven for the women. The entire trampoline event is held on Tuesday.
Previous Gymnastics Coverage:
Rio Test Event Preview
Day 1 Update