Men’s action on day 2 starts with the juniors at 1:00pm CT (Stream, Scores). After the first day, Winter Cup champion Colt Walker leads the 17-18 age group by recording an 80.100 and placing in the top 5 on every event. He has nearly 2 points on anyone else, so he looks to be in control there given a relative hit today.
In the 15-16 group, Nicolas Kuebler stuck the crap out of everything I saw on day 1 to place first with 79.600, but he’s only a couple tenths ahead of Taylor Burkhart in 2nd. Other possible favorite and professional Rami Malek impersonator Isaiah Drake had a nasty on PH on the first day to fall to 6th but could make some ground back up today.
The senior men get underway at 6:30pm CT (Stream, International Stream, Scores). With a lead of nearly 3 points after the first day, Sam Mikulak is going to win. Yul Moldauer is currently in 2nd, only a hair’s breadth ahead of Akash Modi and Shane Wiskus. You like Moldauer as the favorite there for 2nd, but they could end up in any order. Wiskus and Trevor Howard were the big winners of day 1 in terms of improving their prospective cases for the worlds team—also Riley Loos who placed 6th AA but is more under the radar simply because we didn’t see any of his routines on the broadcast. As the less-expected members of the top group, however, they’re going to have to reconfirm that status on day 2. If they falter while people like Yoder and Bower move back up, then we could have a reassertion of the status quo when it comes to the selection camp group.
Just 8 were invited to the selection camp last year, and I have a tough time winnowing down this year’s potential group smaller than 10 or 11 people, so it’s going to get interesting today.
The Oklahoma group will be depleted today as both Colin Van Wicklan and Matt Wenske have been forced to withdraw from the competition. Van Wicklen’s concussion took him out of the first day as well, and Wenske suffered an ankle injury on vault on day 1. Van Wicklen is petitioning to the selection camp, and I have to imagine that will be accepted since he’s a major contender for the worlds team and the selection isn’t for another month.
We’ll be doing the live chat watch party again on GymCastic for night 2 of the men, so get in loser.