The U.S. women’s and men’s teams proved their dominance in the Pan Am region this weekend as both captured the team gold medals by significant margins while winning a total of 18 individual medals, with Tiana Sumanasekera taking the women’s all-around title while Yul Moldauer topped the men’s field.

Sumanasekera, a 15-year-old first-year senior, won gold on beam and silver on floor in addition to her all-around title, while Joscelyn Roberson also had a great competition, winning medals on all three events she competed, including gold on floor and silvers on vault and beam. Nola Matthews and Addison Fatta won the gold and silver medals on bars, and Madray Johnson also represented the country, competing both bars and beam in prelims and in the team final.

This team scored a 163.700 in the final, an incredible result less than three points back from the program’s worlds team score in 2022, while Mexico won the silver with a 154.698, and Canada took bronze with a 150.998. Both teams had some struggles in the three-up three-count final, but Mexico had a stellar performance in qualifications to earn one of two available team berths for world championships, while the second went to Argentina, which was fifth in qualifications, but bumped up to fourth in the final.

Behind Sumanasekera on the all-around podium with a 53.900 were Natalia Escalera of Mexico with a 53.266 for silver and Aurélie Tran of Canada with a 52.867 for bronze. Escalera also won bronze on vault, bars, and floor while Tran won bronze on beam, and the gold medal on vault went to Alexa Moreno of Mexico in her first international competition back since the Olympics.

In addition to the two team spots for worlds, there were 11 individual berths up for grabs here, which went to Sydney Barros, who now represents Puerto Rico, Olivia Kelly of Barbados, Karla Navas of Panama, Ginna Escobar of Colombia, Alais Perea of Ecuador, Lynnzee Brown of Haiti, Makarena Pinto of Chile, Yiseth Valenzuela of Colombia, Franchesca Santi of Chile, Lana Herrera of Panama, and Ana Karina Mendez of Peru, with Stella Diaz of Puerto Rico the first reserve.

Moldauer had a fantastic performance to win the men’s all-around title with an 84.200, ahead of teammate Shane Wiskus, who also had an excellent day to win silver with an 82.800. Moldauer also won gold on floor and parallel bars, silver on high bar, and bronze on pommel horse, while Wiskus won silver on parallel bars and bronze on floor, and he also finished third on high bar, but wasn’t able to reach the podium due to the two-per-country limitations, as both Moldauer and Curran Phillips were ahead of him. Phillips took the gold there, and Khoi Young also brought home a gold medal for the U.S. men’s program, winning pommel horse.

Rounding out the all-around podium was Yuri Guimarães of Brazil with an 81.566 for bronze in addition to earning gold on vault and silver on floor. Other medalists included Daniel Villafañe of Argentina with the gold on rings, Nelson Guilbe of Puerto Rico with the silver on pommel horse, William Emard of Canada with the silver on rings, Ignacio Varas of Chile with the silver on vault, Alejandro de la Cruz of Cuba with the bronze on rings, Leandro Peña of the Dominican Republic with the bronze on vault, Dilan Jimenez of Colombia with the bronze on parallel bars, and Luciano Letelier of Chile with the bronze on high bar.

In the team competition, the U.S. men earned a 247.499 to win the gold, ahead of the Canadians with a 238.599 for silver, and the Brazilians with a 234.901 for bronze. This was a bit of a change from qualifications, where the U.S. men still had the top score by a landslide, but Brazil was second, Colombia third, and Canada down in fourth following rough pommel horse and high bar rotations.

With two team spots on the line in qualifications, Colombia managed to sneak the first spot by just half a tenth over the Canadians, which was a bit of a surprise upset, but despite the tenuous situation Canada ended up in, in the end things worked out in their favor as they finished just under a point ahead of Mexico.

There were six all-around spots open for the men here, which went to Isaac Nuñez of Mexico, Joel Alvarez of Chile, Andres Perez of Puerto Rico, Santiago Mayol of Argentina, Rodrigo Gómez of Mexico, and Diorges Escobar Olmo of Cuba.

Article by Lauren Hopkins