19-year-old junior gymnast Jesse Silverstein just won the SENIOR division at the men’s national qualifier, which took place in Colorado Springs this weekend.  Not only did he win, but he beat world team member Danell Leyva in the process.  First, here’s a link to the results from the competition (from USA Gymnastics).

The most notable point to me is the fact that he scored an impressive 54.7 in execution – an almost unheard of tally these days.  That’s an average of just over a 9.1 in execution on all six events…and if you look a little closer, you’ll note that this is exactly why he won, since his total D-score was nearly three points lower than Leyva’s (and Leyva had a lower D-score on both pommel horse and p-bars than he normally does).  In today’s D-score dominated world, it’s really nice to see impeccable execution actually pay off the way the code is designed for it to.  I’m hoping some videos might pop up so we can see these routines for ourselves.  For now, though, here’s a look at a few of Silverstein’s routines from earlier this year, at both the Winter Cup and the Junior National Championships.

Jesse Silverstein Floor 2010 Winter Cup

Jesse Silverstein Rings 2010 Junior National Championships

Jesse Silverstein P-bars 2010 Winter Cup

Obviously he’s still developing, but I think you can now he’s going to be a player for the USA very soon.  He’s super clean and has a small compact body that will enable him to continue to increase his difficulty.  He also seems to be getting this “competition” thing down pat…he placed 2nd in the 16-18 year-old division at this year’s Junior National Championships as well as last year’s U.S. Championships.  He competed with the seniors at this year’s Winter Cup and placed 19th all-around and a very strong 5th place on parallel bars.  And now winning the U.S. Men’s Qualifier over Danell Leyva has just lifted him to a whole new level.  I don’t think he’s a contender for our world team this year, but a spot on the senior national team seems quite attainable.

Other notables from looking at the scores from this meet:

Danell Leyva’s monstrous high bar D-score of 7.5 and final score of 16.1.  That 7.5 is the same D-score that Zou Kai used to win the world high bar title last year…I don’t believe anyone has shown a higher D-score than that.  Danell’s 4th place high bar routine at worlds last year had a 7.0 D-score, and his recent routine from Pacific Rim had a 6.9:

Danell Leyva High Bar 2010 Pacific Rim Championships

This routine was already STACKED…can you imagine adding six more tenths in difficulty?  I’m not sure exactly what his routine consists of now, but I can’t wait to see it.  Even though Leyva still hasn’t quite come around as a world-contending all-arounder, his huge scores on high bar and potentially huge scores on p-bars are what makes him still very valuable.  I still expect him to make the world team, but I do think he’s going to need to hit his specialties very well…otherwise there is a huge list of guys who would love to steal his spot.

Cal-Berkeley’s Donothan Bailey, who just finished his freshman year with the team that is now in serious jeopardy, WON POMMEL HORSE with a 15.35 (awesome 6.6 D-score).  Daniel Ribeiro was 2nd with a 15.25 (also a 6.6 D-score).  Very interesting…Here’s a look at him at a meet from January  of this year, although I expect his routine at the qualifier was better than this:

Donothan Bailey Pommel Horse 2010 Cal vs. Stanford

2008 Olympian Joey Hagerty competed on three events, scoring a 14.8 on floor (6.0), a 15.0 on vault (5.4), and a 14.5 on high bar (6.1).  He’ll need to step it up if he wants a shot at the world team, but it’s great to see that he’s obviously still in shape and doing fairly well.  He was such a solid member of our Olympic team, and it would be awesome to see him get back out there.

I’ll post more on the meet if I find out any great details or come across any videos.  T

The U.S. Championships are exactly ONE MONTH AWAY!!!