U.S. men’s gymnastics in full rebuilding mode

AARHUS, Denmark – They are young and inexperienced and honestly, very few expected the American men to do much at these world championships anyway.

Even so, it was hard to imagine their free fall would be so thorough. The team that won the silver medal two years ago at the Olympics finished in 13th place after the last of preliminaries were over Sunday.

Only the top eight advanced to team finals. It was the worst finish for the men dating to at least 1974, which is as far back as records analyzed by International Gymnast magazine go.

Or, to put it another way, if they finish outside the top 12 again at next year’s worlds, they won’t be able to send a full team to the 2008 Olympics.

“We had goals, but we didn’t have extremely high expectations, necessarily,” USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny said. “We’re not sitting around moping about this. … They’re just learning what it takes to do it at this level.”

An obvious boost for the program would be the return of Paul and Morgan Hamm, though USAG can’t do much but sit and wait for their decision this winter.

Until then, it’s back to the gym. The clock is ticking – only 22 months ‘til Beijing.

This was a program that pulled itself out of the decades-long doldrums and began earning respect in the international community, finishing second at worlds in 2001 and 2003 and second in Athens. Other teams were so impressed, they came out to practice gyms to watch the Americans train. Many thought they’d left the bad days behind.

But not a single gymnast from those teams was on this one, and after their struggle Saturday, it’s clear this team is deep in rebuilding mode.

“They hadn’t been to worlds, it’s all new guys. You’ve got to deal with that for a little bit,” said five-time American champion Blaine Wilson. “They’ll be competitive. That’s no problem. It just takes a second for them to understand what it’s going to take.”