Atler Vaults to Front of This Gymnastics Trials Class

Vanessa Atler, the Canyon Country gymnast who is one of the favorites to make the U.S. team for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, is the top competitor in this weekend’s American Classic at Cal Poly Pomona.

The event serves as trials for the Pan American Games in Winnipeg this summer, the top six qualified competitors making the U.S. team.

Besides Atler, 16, a former national champion who won gold medals at the Goodwill Games in vault and floor exercise last summer, other top gymnasts entered are Jennie Thompson, Elise Ray, Jeanette Antolin of Huntington Beach and Jamie Dantzscher of Palmdale.

Kristen Maloney, the current national champion, isn’t competing because of a stress fracture in her leg.

Antolin, ranked sixth nationally, hopes to make the Pan Am team as a steppingstone as she seeks to become the first gymnast of Mexican heritage to make the U.S. women’s Olympic team.

“I think it would be really neat if I can represent Hispanic people,” said Antolin, a junior at Huntington Beach Marina High whose father grew up in Mexico and Anaheim.

“This is going to be kind of like the Olympic trials because of all the big names that are going to be there, and only six people from the U.S. will get to go. So it’s going to be a big competition, and it’s really nerve-racking.”

The two-day competition begins at 7 tonight with the junior division, and although some juniors are eligible for the Pan Am games team, the top competitors, Ashley Postell and Kristal Uzelac, are only 12 and are looking toward the 2004 Olympics.

The senior competition begins Sunday at 2 p.m., and has seven of the top 10 gymnasts in the national rankings, Maloney and Dominique Moceanu the most notable exceptions. Kristie Phillips, 25, the 1987 national champion, is also entered, and another noteworthy addition is Morgan White, the 1998 junior national champion, who has moved up to the senior division.