Hamm looks better than ever

SAN JOSE -- Paul Hamm’s fist pump Friday night was a little in-your-face message to the world. David Durante’s double fist pump was a personal exclamation of redemptive joy.

Hamm, the defending Olympic all-around gold medalist who had not competed in the three years since the Athens Games, won the U.S. nationals individual gold medal in the floor exercise at the Visa Championships at HP Pavilion. Durante, who had collapsed under the pressure of being a favorite last year, when he finished sixth and was left off the world championship team, won the all-around gold medal.

Choosing to compete in only two disciplines, Hamm pounded out a floor-shuddering exercise to win the gold. After jamming a sore ankle in Wednesday’s first round of the floor exercise, Paul’s twin brother Morgan chose to do only his pommel horse routine Friday.

Durante, 27, of Garwood, N.J., and a Stanford graduate, made no major mistakes Friday night and finished off the competition with an enthusiastic, confident performance on the parallel bars. When his landing was solid and without a stutter, Durante yelled and ran back and forth at the end of the arena waving to his family.

“It was a flood of emotion like I’ve never had before,” Durante said. “I have been waiting for this for a long time. To have it happen here, in the Bay Area, it is indescribable.”

Durante finished with a two-night score of 179.300. He was just ahead of Guillermo Alvarez, 24, of Denver, who finished with a score of 179.100.

The math is complicated when it comes to selecting the six-man team that will represent the U.S. at next month’s World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, and nobody’s performance here guaranteed them a spot on the team.

U.S. senior team coordinator Ron Brant said choosing the team was like completing a jigsaw puzzle. It is a delicate process of selecting all-around gymnasts as well as some event specialists. Brant said rather than hurry itself into making mistakes, a five-man selection committee will deliberate overnight and not announce the world participants until today.

In order to qualify a team for the 2008 Olympics, the U.S. must finish in the top 12 in Germany. At last year’s worlds, the U.S. finished 13th.

“Jumping off a bridge,” would be Brant’s reaction if the men don’t finish at least 12th and he won’t have any Hamms to help him. The twins are easing into their comeback and announced before the nationals that they would sit out the world championships.

There is no one more eager than Durante to go to Germany. He was a disappointed alternate to the 2006 U.S. team and said it was “extremely discouraging” to watch his teammates perform so poorly in Denmark last year.

It was also discouraging to all the U.S. men to see 23-year-old Justin Spring crumple to the floor clutching his right knee on his vault landing. Earlier Friday Brant had described Spring as, “The most gifted gymnast seen in the United States in a long time. Judges around the world see him and say, ‘Oh my God I can’t believe the power this guy has.’ ”

While a USA gymnastics official said Spring had a sprained right knee and would have an X-ray today, Paul Hamm said Spring told him he had most likely torn an anterior cruciate ligament.

“That’s a year at least,” Hamm said. “I’ve been saying this kid was a lock to make the Olympics.”

Hamm suggested that Spring and Alexander Artemev -- who had been the two-time defending all-around champion and who finished fourth last night -- were taking too many chances by trying high-difficulty vaults that had low payoffs.

“It’s crazy,” Hamm said.

But overall the Hamms’ poise and remerging skills seemed to energize the rest of the U.S. gymnasts.

Brant had said it was hard to identify a team leader but USA gymnastics President Steve Penny said Durante has, “all the qualities you could want in a leader.”

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diane.pucin@latimes.com