Minneapolis (AFP) – Shilese Jones has some catching up to do at the US Olympic gymnastics trials, where she’ll try to earn a Paris Games berth after missing the national championships with a shoulder injury.
Jones’s coach, Sarah Korngold, said the 21-year-old from Seattle was “not really dealing with pain anymore” as she arrived in Minneapolis for the trials, in which a field of 16 women — led by superstar Simone Biles — were scheduled to compete on Friday and Sunday to determine the five-strong team for Paris.
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The all-around winner at trials gains an automatic Olympic spot, but the remaining four are selected not only on the basis of their trials finish but also on their performances in meets such as the US championships earlier this month.
Jones finished runner-up to Biles in all-around at the Core Hydration Classic in May. But she withdrew from the national championships because of pain in her right shoulder, the kind of flare-up she’s dealt with since suffering a torn labrum in 2022.
“The biggest issue right now is just routine endurance,” Jones’s coach Sarah Korngold told reporters. “We don’t have enough repetitions. And because we were building up from a pretty significant rest we couldn’t just go from zero to a hundred, we had to build back up in like parts and halves and whatever.”
Jones has established herself as one of America’s most consistent performers. She won team gold at the 2022 and 2023 world championships and after earning all-around and uneven bars silver at the 2022 worlds she took bronze in both events at last year’s world championships.
Korngold said Jones “had a lot of pain at championships,” but it took some persuasion from medical staff to convince her it would be better to “nip this in the bud” to avoid problems lingering through the Olympic season.
“She, in her heart of hearts, she would want to go, she wants to compete,” Korngold said. “She wants to show people that she’s earning this and that she isn’t trying to, like skate through.”
Korngold said the procedures to petition for a trials berth despite missing the championships “were lined up exactly for a situation like this.” Alicia Sacramone Quinn and Chellsie Memmel, who oversee the US women’s programme, concurred.
“It really came down to what is going to give her the best opportunity at Olympic trials to go out and make the team,” women’s team technical lead Memmel said. “And then if she does make the team, be able to withstand the length of training and time that goes into competing at the Olympic Games.”
Korngold said the trials are a chance for Jones to show “she does build fitness quickly.” Hopefully she does enough here to show that she’s ready to go in Paris.
© 2024 AFP
