Vitaliy Guimaraes wins 2022 Winter Cup men’s all-around title in tight competition
The 2022 Winter Cup senior men’s all-around title came down to the final rotation, with a handful of athletes in the mix, but after hovering in the top four for most of the competition, Oklahoma’s Vitaliy Guimaraes was able to surpass Olympic and up-and-coming talent, alike, to finish atop the podium.
Friday’s men’s senior competition at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, marked the first domestic meet that will utilize a bonus system to incentivize athletes to compete more difficult routines in the lead-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics, all in an effort to make the U.S. more competitive with the big three men’s powerhouses: Russia, Japan, and China.
“I think it really helps incentivize these younger gymnasts to not just try and be clean but to do the extra tenth, the extra two tenths, in their routine, just so that we can be more competitive internationally,” runner-up Khoi Young (Stanford) explained. “We’re always good, execution-wise, when we go out to the world championships in the Olympics, [but] we never place top three because we don’t have the difficulty. I think this bonus system is really helping us take strides towards being in the top three spot.”
The addition of the bonus score was a big storyline during the all-around competition, with four out of the top five athletes counting bonus points in at least two of their routines.
Guimaraes was the only athlete to not earn a bonus on any of his six routines, but after 2021 Winter Cup junior all-around champion Asher Hong (Cypress) and 2020 Olympian Yul Moldauer (5280) both faltered on high bar, the Oklahoma senior finished first with a 83.950 all-around score.
“I think, seeing it now, in an actual meet, and seeing the scores that you can get with a bonus, more people will drive to push more difficulty,” Moldauer said about the change. “But it is what it is at the end of the day… I mean Vitaliy won… That just shows, when you have good routines, you can be right up there with people who are getting bonuses.”
Young finished second, counting bonuses on his specialty event, pommel horse (15.342), and vault. Young earned a total of 0.886 in additional points, lifting him above third-place finisher Hong (83.029).
Hong dominated the competition through the first four rotations, earning the most bonuses of any senior men’s competitor on Friday night – an impressive feat for a first-year senior. The 17-year-old posted the top score on two of his best events: still rings (14.566 – 0.366 bonus) and vault (16.680 – 1.780 bonus), but the fall on high bar, combined with a low E-score on pommel horse, knocked him out of the running for the title in the final two rotations.
“[The judges] killed me on the scissor and then my travels,” Hong said about his pommel horse set. “So there’s nothing I can do. I’m just glad I hit. Last event… horse… under pressure situation.”
Hong attributed his errors on high bar to a brand new routine, including German giants, which he’s only hit a few times in practice. Besides high bar, he did the sets he’s been training and “didn’t really change anything,” despite the recent introduction of the bonus system.
While Hong believes the system will help “to a certain extent,” he elaborated, saying, “You always have to have like the inner drive to get that high start because, internationally, the guys aren’t getting a bonus system. They’re just doing sets that are high regardless of what they’re competing.”
Moldauer held the lead going into the final rotation. An error on high bar (11.400) put him out of podium contention with a 81.648 six-event total. The former Oklahoma gymnast also fell on pommel horse.
“Honestly, I feel like I did really bad. It’s hard to say to do good and have falls and mistakes, but again, this is just a learning experience,” Moldauer said as he evaluated his day one performance. “I went out there and threw some new routines. Even though they didn’t go super perfect, I’m just glad that I went for certain skills like my new parallel bars set. That parallel bars set feels like it’s like five minutes long. High bar, I’m actually getting really comfortable with high bar to the point where today I just felt like I should have done way better. I don’t know what happened. I kind of choked, but I’m excited to go out there on Sunday and do it again.”
While not one to make excuses, Moldauer did acknowledge that he has only had one week off since before the Olympics, and that was for former national team member and Oklahoma gymnast Allan Bower’s wedding.
“I haven’t had much time to really work on new routines enough to prepare myself for Winter Cup,” Moldauer said. “[For] Winter Cup, you want to put yourself in the best position to make the team. Now that I’m not in college, this is my job. This is how I get paid, so if I don’t make the team, I’m kind of in the deep hole.”
Guimaraes had an unorthodox journey to his first Winter Cup title.
In mid-January, on the way back from the Rocky Mountain Open, he had a seizure (cause unknown) and fell on his face, breaking his nose. Since he has family in Denver, Guimaraes spent a few days there before heading back to school to have surgery and return to training.
“I kind of just slowly eased my way back into things,” Guimaraes said. “It was pretty terrifying because I’m pretty sure I had a concussion, but the doctors didn’t really tell me that I had one until I got to [Oklahoma]. It was a tough time, I’m not gonna lie. It was really hard on my emotional, physical, and mental well-being, just in all aspects. It was just a hard time for me.”
That’s why Guimaraes surprised himself today. He told media during podium training that he wanted to take things slow, but he clearly recovered quicker than expected.
“I guess just like somebody that won without doing any bonuses kind of shows that the bonus system is a good idea, but I think, personally, at the end of the day, if you really want to be competitive [on] the international podium, it’s gonna take more than just bonuses to be able to be on that podium if we really want to compete with other countries,” Guimaraes said about the bonus system.
Guimaraes highlighted his roommates, girlfriend, family, and others in helping support him in his return to the gym after January’s incident.
Following the conclusion of the senior men’s all-around competition, the top five all-around athletes and 2021 world medalists Stephen Nedoroscik (Penn State) and Brody Malone (Stanford) were named to the national team. The rest of the 2022 senior men’s national team will be named in the days following the conclusion of Winter Cup competition on Sunday.
For a full play-by-play recap of the 2022 Men’s Senior competition day 1 (all-around final, apparatus final qualifications), visit our live blog of the event here. The full broadcast replay and individual routines can be viewed on USA Gymnastics’ new streaming platform FlipNow.
