The BulleTin • SaTurday, May 22, 2021 B3
WOMEN’S GYMNASTICS
World champs Hurd, Memmel eye big picture at U.S. Classic
BY WILL GRAVES
Associated Press
Morgan Hurd can feel when the
pressure creeps up on her.
The pressure — the kind that comes
with the territory when you have the
title “world champion” on your re-
sume — isn’t just external. It’s internal.
She has been one of the best gym-
nasts on the planet for years. The only
thing the 19-year-old Hurd hasn’t
done is make an Olympic team, a by-
product of the calendar more than
anything else. Her first year compet-
ing as a senior came in 2017 when she
practically willed herself to a world all-
around title in Montreal.
Having a shot at the 2020 Olym-
pics was always part of the plan. Hurd
seemed to be on her way last March
when she won the American Cup in
what was supposed to be the first ma-
jor step toward the 2020 Tokyo Games
following an occasionally difficult
2019 competition season.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic
hit. The Olympics were pushed back
12 months. And all the momentum
vanished.
In that way, things have been no
different for Hurd than for most of
the other women hoping to make the
U.S. team when it heads to Japan in
July.
In one very real way, however, there
is a significant difference.
Only Hurd, Simone Biles and
Chellsie Memmel will take the floor
at the U.S. Classic in Indianapolis
on Saturday with a world all-around
medal (or in Biles’ case, five of them)
stashed away somewhere. Of those
Blazers
Continued from B1
“This is where I should be. I should
be in the postseason. That’s just me
speaking from the heart and genu-
inely. If I’m not in the postseason,
then it should be a problem,” he said.
Anthony was drafted by the Nug-
gets with the third overall pick in the
2003 NBA draft. He played in Denver
for seven-plus seasons, helping the
team reach the Western Conference
Finals following the 2008-09 season.
He was traded in 2011 to the New
York Knicks, where he spent more
Morry Gash/AP file
Morgan Hurd performs on the floor during the American Cup gymnastics competition
in Milwaukee in 2020. Hurd, the 2017 world champion, will take the competition floor
for the first time in more than a year on Saturday at the U.S. Classic in Indianapolis.
three, Hurd is the only one without an
Olympic medal.
For Biles, the next two months
could very well serve as a victory lap of
sorts. For the 32-year-old Memmel —
the 2005 world champion and a mem-
ber of the silver-medal-winning 2008
U.S. Olympic team — this weekend is
simply the next surprising step in an
improbable comeback.
For Hurd, who lives and trains in
Delaware, this is her first and possibly
only opportunity to make the Games.
And she knows it. And she knows oth-
ers do too.
“I really have expectations for my-
self and I know everyone else has too
because of what I’ve done in the past,”
Hurd said Friday. “But at the same
time, I really have to remind myself
and constantly tell myself this, ‘That
that was how many years ago?’”
Almost four, which can be a lifetime
at the sport’s elite level. The miles —
and the injuries (three surgeries on her
right elbow alone) — have added up.
“I was a fresh senior (in 2017),”
Hurd said. “You know, my body was
holding up better. I had been an ath-
lete a lot less time. So I just have to
keep reminding myself that where I
am now, I’m doing the best that I can
do now.”
Hurd plans to use the meet as a
foundation she hopes she can build
on heading into a busy stretch that in-
cludes the U.S. Championships in two
weeks and the Olympic Trials at the
end of June. She won’t compete on un-
even bars this weekend and her rou-
than six seasons. Anthony also had
stops in Oklahoma and Houston, but
in early 2019 he was traded to Chi-
cago and the Bulls cut him before he
played a game.
Anthony hadn’t played for a year
when he was signed by the Trail Blaz-
ers in November 2019. He instantly
sparked the team and developed a
chemistry with his teammates while
also providing veteran leadership.
This season he’s come off the bench,
leading the Blazers’ second unit with
an average of 13.4 points per game,
“What he’s done for us in a year
and a half has been what we needed.
“This is where I should be.
I should be in the postseason.
That’s just me speaking from the
heart and genuinely. If I’m not
in the postseason, then it should
be a problem.”
— Carmelo Anthony, Blazers forward
This year, the role that he’s had off the
bench has been a big part of the rea-
son why we are where we are,” Blazers
coach Terry Stotts said.
tines on other events will be watered
down with an eye toward upping the
difficulty in time for Trials.
“My gymnastics may not be up to
par as much as I would like, but I hon-
estly have never felt better,” Hurd said.
“Just being out there has really boosted
my whole morale and gave me a lot of
confidence already.”
Regardless of what happens over the
next five weeks, Hurd finds herself —
and the world — in a different place
than when she stood atop the podium
at Olympic Stadium in Montreal.
Hurd, born in China before being
adopted and brought to the U.S., has
become an increasingly vocal sup-
porter of social justice initiatives. She
spoke at a “Stop Asian Hate” rally in
New York last month. On Friday she
wore a T-shirt with “Stop Asian Hate”
on one sleeve and “BLM” (Black Lives
Matter) on the other. She credited her
Gymnast Chellsie Memmel trains in New
Berlin, Wisconsin, in February.
more public advocacy to the bravery
of fellow gymnasts who came for-
ward to detail the abuse they suffered
during their careers.
“(They) paved the way and opened
up the floor to be able to use my
voice,” Hurd said. “And I just really
thought to myself, too, that all of these
things are so much bigger than gym-
nastics and if gymnastics disappeared
tomorrow, these problems would still
be there. And I’m a person first and a
gymnast second.”
It’s a mentality echoed by Memmel,
who retired in the fall of 2012 and
had no real plans on returning until
the COVID-19 shutdown last spring
gave her copious amounts of time on
her hands. What started with a simple
foray into “adult gymnastics” evolved
into something far more serious.
There were nerves on Friday when she
walked into the arena to practice on
the same floor with young women half
her age.
She admitted the jitters were “silly”
because ultimately she knows she’s
playing with house money.
“I think that’s the cool part this time
around, that gymnastics is a huge part
of my life, but it’s not the only part of
my life,” said Memmel, who will com-
pete in two events on Saturday but
hopes to expand to all four if she suc-
cessfully petitions her way into the
U.S. Championships. “So if I don’t do
well, I’m still a wife and I still have two
amazing kids and an amazing family
and just this incredible, incredible sup-
port system that, you know, has just
meant so much to me. So, you know,
either way it goes … I still win.”
Anthony wasn’t with the Blazers yet
when they last faced the Nuggets in
the playoffs in 2019. Portland won in
seven games to advance to the West-
ern Conference Finals, but fell in four
games to Golden State.
Likewise, the personnel in Denver
has turned over since Anthony left.
But the Nuggets are still very aware of
the danger Anthony poses.
“You have arguably one of the great-
est one-on-one scorers in NBA history
in Carmelo Anthony, who’s still doing
it at a high level at this stage of his ca-
reer, which is really impressive,” Den-
ver coach Michael Malone said.
The Blazers are riding momentum
into the playoffs, having won 10 of
their final 12 regular-season games.
“Mentally, when we’re in a good
space as a unit, as a team, we’re in a
good space. Confidence-wise we’re
in a good space. These are all things
that you want to have clicking for you
going into the postseason,” Anthony
said. “I think right now we have a lot
of those things working in our favor
heading into this postseason. So we’ve
got to stay with that, continue to be-
lieve in ourselves, understand what we
are up against, understand how hard
we worked to get to this point.”
Morry Gash/AP file
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