By Adam Chau
In the first day of the completion at the men’s Olympic Gymnastics Trials, Asher Hong, the 20-year-old currently at Stanford, and Yul Moldauer, the 27-year-old from Colorado, showed why they are both strong candidates, landing in the top six of fifteen athletes on the first day of competition.
With the selection of the men’s Olympic Team being a combination of scores from the U.S. Championships and the U.S. Olympic Trials, as well as discretionary criteria (according to U.S. Gymnastics), the competition was intense the first day, with some unexpected faulters, but resilient comebacks.
Yul Moldauer, the Korean American, adopted from South Korea, started with a fall on his first run at the pommel horse, scoring a 13.100, landing him in 12th place after the first rotation. Chinese American Asher Hong, on his first run on the rings scored an impressive 14.450 landing him in second place.
In the second rotation it was Hong on vault who had a shaky landing, but still managed a 14.350, dropping to 3rd place, while Moldauer had a 13.850 on rings, moving him down even lower to 13th place.
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After the third rotation where Asher Hong scored a 14.650 on parrallel bars and Yul Moldauer scored a 14.500 on the vault, both were in 2nd and 10th place, while two other Asian Americans, high schoolers Kiran Mandava and Kai Uemura, were in 13th and 14th respectively.
During the final three rotations there was more jostling for placements with Moldauer shaking off some of the earlier mishaps, scoring a 15.050 on parallel bars, placing 3rd after the 4th rotation.
But in the next rotation it was Hong, previoulsy in 5th, who scored a 14.350 on his floor exercise, and led into the final rotation, setting up a final rotation of suspense.
While Moldauer scored a 14.200 on his floor exercise in the final rotation of the competition, Hong did not perform as good on the pommel horse, with a 12.800, slipping down into 5th place, with Moldauer moving up one spot to 6th.
The men’s competition concludes on Saturday where the Olympic team will be announced.
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FYI: Kai Uemura, Kiran Mandava, and Asher’s brother – Xander Hong are all headed to Stanford this Fall for their freshman year as NCAA Division 1 athletes! They were all top picks in recruiting as seniors in high school. ☺️