Sam Mikulak leads his subdivision at World Gymnastics Championships

Sam Mikulak, a junior at University of Michigan and from Newport Coast, had an all-around score of 89.532 to lead in the standings after the first of four subdivisions at the World Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium.

This is the qualification round. The U.S. will have four more gymnasts competing today in the third subdivision: John Orozco, Jake Dalton, Alexander Naddour and Brandon Wynn.

Mikulak, who was on the 2012 U.S. Olympic team, started strong with a 15.400 on parallel bars, not always his strength. He also had an outstanding performance on the horizontal bar, where he had two full-twisting Kovacs variations and stuck his double-twisting, double layout dismount to hear a 15.366.

“It was fun out there,” said Mikulak, the reigning U.S. all-around champion. “I started off with some really good routines.”

He added: “Parallel bars and high bar were my best today. To stick my landing at worlds is pretty cool.”

There is no team competition in this world championships, only all-around and individual events.

The women begin Wednesday and McKayla Maroney of Long Beach and Kyla Ross of Aliso Viejo will compete for the United States.

The qualification round determines which gymnasts advance to the finals.

Here’s an overview of the various ways to watch and follow the U.S. team’s performances. For more information on the World Championships, please go to usagymworlds.com.

• Live webcast. UniversalSports.com will have a live webcast of the all-around and individual event finals from Antwerp, which will also be available at usagymworlds.com. For Pacific Daylight Savings time, the live webcasts are scheduled for: Oct. 3 –men’s all-around final, 11 a.m.; Oct. 4 – women’s all-around final, 11 a.m.; Oct. 5-6 – individual event finals, 5:30 a.m. (NOTE: Antwerp is nine hours ahead of Los Angeles; when it is noon in Antwerp, it is 3 a.m. in Los Angeles.) A live webstream of the qualification round is also available at usagymworlds.com.
• Cable TV. Universal Sports will show all of the finals live on its cable network. Calling the action will be a team play-by-play announcer Steve Schlanger with 1984 Olympic gold medalist Bart Connor, 1996 Olympic gold-medalist Amanda Borden and Olympian Kip Simons serving as analysts. Be sure to check your local listings for times. Universal Sports Network is available on Time Warner Cable, Cox, satellite providers DirecTV and DISH and numerous regional cable and IPTV operators in markets across the country. To find Universal Sports Network in your area, go to its website.
• NBC. NBC will broadcast coverage of the World Championships from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. PDT on Oct. 12-13. The commentators are Al Trautwig, 1984 Olympic gold-medalist Tim Daggett and 2008 Olympic gold-medalist Nastia Liukin.
• usagymworlds.com. USA Gymnastics will provide enhanced coverage from Belgium that will include results and photos from the competition, as well as interviews and the webcast. Fans can also follow the action on Facebook, facebook.com/USAGymnastics, and Twitter, @usagym or #FIG2013Antwerp.
• Live scoring. The International Gymnastics Federation provides live scoring. For more information and access, go to antwerp2013.fig-gymnastics.com.

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