SAN JOSE – Perfection is the goal, always, with Martha Karolyi. She seeks in gymnasts a consistency that would allow them to do flawless routines in their sleep.
But with less than a month until the Rio Olympics, the U.S. national team coordinator doesn’t need the women vying for the five-woman team to be at 100 percent.
After the first night of Olympic Trials at the SAP Center on Friday, none of the top contenders to make the team was perfect. Simone Biles – the closest thing to a lock – had a few uncharacteristic errors in leading the competition with an all-around score of 61.850. And first-year senior Laurie Hernandez was a point behind despite a mistake in her uneven bars routine.
“I’m not happy when mistakes happen but you can handle it in different ways and Laurie handled that well,” said Karolyi. “Simone wasn’t perfect on her opening sequence, but with their experience and their good competitive spirt, they can handle it. Some girls would maybe freak out and just jump, but they handled it well.”
For Karolyi, who has a solid idea of the team in her head, little changed after the first night of competition. While she expects the gymnasts to be at 95 percent of their training capacity, she would like to see cleaner routines in the second night of trials on Sunday.
It’s a testament to Biles’ dominance that she was solidly in first despite a few mistakes.
The three-time defending world champion took a big step forward in landing her Amanar on vault, but she still got a 16.000 for the highest score of the night on that event.
On beam, she wobbled trying to complete a wolf turn – which looks like a crouching pirouette on one leg with the other extended – but saved herself from coming off the beam. Her score of 15.200 was still second best of the night.
“That wasn’t even a wolf turn,” Biles said. “That was something crazy.”
Biles said she was focused on her dismount because she’s been having trouble with it in practice, so she took for granted a skill she usually does with ease. Despite her frustration there, she was glad to battle through the routine.
To Aimee Boorman, Biles’ coach, the bigger issue was controlling her adrenaline on floor. A powerful tumbler, Biles has to harness that energy and struggled at times to do so before a sold-out crowd.
“It used to be 90 percent of the time she couldn’t control it, and each year it’s gotten better and better and better,” said Boorman. “So (Friday) I don’t think it was that she wasn’t concentrating on it. I think it was just a little too much.”
As it has been for the past three years, the competition was for second place and Hernandez continued a strong season in taking that spot. She was third at U.S. championships in June.
She did that despite stalling on a pirouette in her uneven bars routine, a result of trying to hold her handstand.
“When you hold, it’s kind of like a wow factor, so I was going for that nice hold and fell the other way,” she said. “But I covered it nice and still got a nice score for it.”
Her score was tied for fifth on the event, and she finished in the top five of all four events with the best of the night on balance beam. Her crowd-pleasing floor routine playing to her strengths as a dancer and showed her charisma, giving her a good note to end on for the biggest competition the 16-year-old has been in.
“It should make her feel really confident going into Sunday,” said Maggie Haney, Hernandez’s coach. “It was a good start. She was pretty good (Friday). She has even more in her.”
Only the all-around winner here is guaranteed a spot on the team, one Biles is almost certain to take. Of the others who are favored to get there – with Fierce Fivers Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas among them – Hernandez made herself stand out.
It was an imperfect night for the leaders, but Karolyi will still take it.
“We will be working more on refining the routines and more like 100 percent perfection if that’s possible,” Karolyi said. “Training camps, it’s really very helpful for that because they will have precise assignments which they have to do and permanently they are under scrutiny for every single routine. This way, they can build up more consistency. But both of the girls proved that they are very good team members.”
