U.S. World Men's Team Is Set

U.S. World Men’s Team Is Set

By Helene Elliott

July 14, 2003 12 AM PT

Morgan Hamm, Blaine Wilson, Brett McClure and Raj Bhavsar were selected Sunday to the United States men’s team for the World Gymnastics Championships on Aug. 16-24 at the Arrowhead Pond.

Paul Hamm and Jason Gatson had won berths by finishing first and second, respectively, in the U.S. championships in June. Alexander Artemev and Guard Young were designated as alternates.

Wilson, 28, has the most international experience after competing in two Olympics and four world championships. Morgan Hamm, Paul’s twin and the U.S. floor exercise champion, competed in the 2000 Sydney Games but hasn’t competed in the world championships. Bhavsar, the 2002 NCAA champion at Ohio State and this year’s U.S. vault champion, was on the silver medal-winning men’s team in the 2001 world competition.

“I’m happy to make the team but I still feel there’s a bigger goal ahead,” Bhavsar said during a break in the selection camp at Columbus, Ohio. “I’m not jumping for joy. I won’t do that until I’m on the top step of the podium.”

The world championships will award individual and team medals and will be a qualifying event for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Olympics

Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

U.S. World Men’s Team Is Set

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