Sam Mikulak is open about the challenges he faced during a layoff from competition that stretched from February 2020 to early this month at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships.
He is like many who have faced travails in men’s gymnastics at a time when the U.S. is playing catch-up with world powers entering the Olympic Trials on Thursday at the Dome at America’s Center.
Injuries, mental health issues and other problems have been stumbling blocks. Now it’s time for the field of Olympic candidates to leave it all behind one month before the start of the Games in Tokyo.
Mikulak, who is trying to make his third Olympic team, thinks he has overcome his emotional difficulties. The next challenge is to finish shaking off the rust that left him an uncharacteristic third at the U.S. championships.
“I realized mental health was something I needed to tackle pretty early on (in the pandemic) because I started feeling the emotions a lot more as the games got postponed and we couldn’t train,” Mikulak said. “I was feeling frantic not only physically but emotionally, and there wasn’t an end to that franticness.”
Mikulak experienced what he described as “a good amount of depression” as he tried to be perfect in everyday life, just as he strives to be in gymnastics. He came to terms with his issues and feels in a better place.
His experience was personal but reflected what was happening within gymnastics nationally. Mikulak is 28 and older than all of his competitors, many of whom come from the college ranks and were left without places to train for months while other countries moved forward.
The U.S. is viewed as being at more of a disadvantage due to the layoff.
“It hurt us bad, I’m not going to lie,” said Brett McClure, the high performance director for the U.S. men. “We had a lot of guys training at universities and they shut down completely. Consistency in training was a major problem. Looking at China, Russia, Japan, they all bubbled immediately and were able to continue training. We could not.”
The last six months have been better but there is much ground to make up and possible obstacles to overcome.
Shane Wiskus is dealing with his own mental and physical issues after he fell three times from the high bar in his next-to-last event at the championships. He was second at the time and dropped to ninth but is considered a challenger for an Olympic spot.
“I’ve gotten a lot of support from what happened, and I’m working with sports psych trying to process it, work through it and get over it as quickly as possible,” he said during a session with media. “My primary focus is moving on, so if we could avoid questions about that routine, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
Wiskus also has been dealing with a wrist injury suffered at the NCAA Championships that required a cortisone shot. He took nearly two months off from training on the pommel horse last year due to a similar injury in his other wrist.
Yul Moldauer is another top contender after placing second earlier this month to Brody Malone, who has won two NCAA championships. He will be a favorite this weekend. However, Moldauer was dealing with back spasms at the last event.
“I’ve watched the videos and you can tell something just looks off,” he said. “But my back feels great. I went home and went to my therapist. … It’s something I didn’t tell a lot of people about because any day, something can happen. It gives me way more confidence going into any other meet if something happens.”
The U.S. hasn’t won a team medal since it took bronze in 2008. The last gold medal came in 1984. In 2016, the medals went to Japan, Russia and China, the same countries McClure said didn’t miss a beat when the pandemic hit.
Mikulak is the only individual at the trials who was on the 2016 team. He has gone through the rigors of the gymnastics lifestyle longer than most do in their careers and remains one of the country’s best after beating his pandemic woes.
“It was kind of a hard, dark time to go through to get there, and quarantine was the only time in my life I could actually go through that process,” he said.
The U.S. will have a four-man team and one individual performer for the Olympics. The top all-around performer at the trials will go automatically as will the second-place finisher as long as he places in the top three in three events. Remaining spots will be filled by the selection committee.
The women will have four gymnasts on the team along with two individual performers. The top two finishers in all-around at the trials will make the team along with two picked by the selection committee. Jade Carey already has been named to one of the individual spots and committee will choose the other.
