ST. LOUIS — The Olympic selection process is grueling enough for gymnasts — an exhausting five weeks with three competitions where they try to prove to national team coordinator Martha Karolyi that they’re at their peak now.
For Maggie Nichols and Madison Kocian, two gymnasts in contention to make the Rio Olympic team, the added challenge comes in a shortened season as they return from injuries.
Nichols makes her return at the U.S. championships here starting Friday after tearing her meniscus in April, while Kocian is competing for a second time after breaking her tibia in late February.
Both gymnasts helped the U.S. women to team gold at worlds last year and brought home individual medals, but those won’t carry as much weight as showing their gymnastics are as good or better than they showed before getting hurt.
“I just want to show her that I’m strong and that I’ve been working in the gym super hard and that I’m consistent and can hit my routines,” said Nichols. “I just want to make her proud and want her to know that I can do this.”
While they won’t have U.S. Olympic trials until early next month in San Jose, Nichols and Kocian know Karolyi and the selection committee are taking stock at each camp and each competition. A good performance in the two rounds of competition here can demonstrate how well they have recovered.
Nichols had a breakthrough season in 2015, taking silver in the all-around at U.S. championships before winning a bronze on floor exercise at worlds. She started the year with a silver at the American Cup in March, but hurt her knee on a vault training for Pacific Rim championships.
Though she missed a few weeks of training and one national team camp while she was out, she almost immediately continued working on uneven bars.
Nichols will compete on that event and balance beam here, though she’ll train on all four events. She’s expected to do the all-around at trials.
“I think the number one thing is mentality, but I wouldn’t underestimate her because I saw her doing floor and vaults, and I’m just like, ‘Maggie, if this were anybody else, they wouldn’t be back but you are,’” said Simone Biles, Nichols’ best friend and the three-time defending U.S. and world champion. “So she’s still one of the most powerful gymnasts we have out here, so I would still put her on that team.”
For Kocian, the recovery is a little further along. The two-time worlds team member is strongest on bars, where she won gold in a four-way tie at last year’s world championships, but had to take about three weeks off from the event because she couldn’t land on her broken foot.
She competed on beam and bars at the Secret Classic earlier this month, posting the second-highest score on her favorite event.
“I think it’s a huge confidence boost knowing that I’ve been in such a big stage in competition and I handled myself very well there,” Kocian said.
Ultimately, if each can get back to where they were last season, Kocian might have an easier path forward. Bars have been one of the Americans’ weaker events. Nichols, meanwhile, shares strengths with Biles, defending Olympic all-around gold medalist Gabby Douglas and defending Olympic floor gold medalist Aly Raisman.
“I guess I try not to really look at all the other girls and trying to focus on being the best I can be,” said Kocian. “That’s just really what I want to do this summer — just have no regrets at the end of the summer.”
U.S. championships are only the next step in the process, one that ends when the team is named on July 10. What they did last season won’t matter as much as what they’ve shown they can do during the selection process.
“If the performances are very close, almost similar … then we go back in our training camps what they did, in past competitions, how they behaved, how consistent they were,” Karolyi said. “Then those factors come in. But first of all, you have to have the material and prove that you’re able, your routines hold up at world level.”
For Nichols and Kocian, that starts with proving their untimely injuries are in the past.
