The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) announced that 2009 World all-around silver-medalist Rebecca Bross of Plano, Texas/WOGA, earned April Female Athlete of the Month honors for her all-around gold-medal performance at the 2010 Pacific Rim Championships in Melbourne, Australia. Bross joins wrestler Justin Ruiz, who earned the Male Athlete of the Month, and April’s Team of the Month, the Paul Pustovar Curling Team, as award honorees.
Bross, coming off her 2010 Tyson American Cup title, won the senior all-around crown at the 2010 Pacific Rim Championships in Melbourne, Australia on April 30, as well as the individual titles for the balance beam and floor exercise. Bross, who won the junior all-around title at Pacific Rim in 2008, tallied a score of 59.150 to earn the all-around crown. Posting the top scores for both bars (15.150) and floor (14.600), she led the U.S. women’s team to the 2010 Pac Rim Team title. Including the team gold medal, Bross brought home five medals from the competition, four gold and one silver. The USA Women’s Gymnastics Team placed second in the team voting. The women’s team handily won the team gold medal at Pacific Rim, going one-two in both the junior and senior all-around competition. The U.S. women have won the team title and claimed the top two spots in the junior and senior all-around at every Pacific Rim Championships since 2002.
Ruiz (Meridian, Idaho) won two major wrestling events within a week in late April, claiming gold at 96kg/211.5 lbs. at the U.S. Open Wrestling Championships, the annual national championships on the senior level in Cleveland, Ohio, April 23-24. He won five matches on the way to the title, including a victory over John Lorenz of the U.S. Army in the finals, 2-0, 1-0. This was his sixth career U.S. Open title. Ruiz also won a gold medal at the Pan American Championships in Monterrey, Mexico, April 30. He won four straight matches in the five-athlete round-robin competition, including a clutch victory over defending Pan American champion and eventual runner-up Yasmany Lugo of Cuba.
The Paul Pustovar Curling Team that includes Pustovar (Hibbing, Minn.), Brian Simonson (Hibbing, Minn.), Tom Harms (Pengilly, Minn.), Don Mohwak (Nashwauk, Minn.), and Dale Gibbs (Woodbury, Minn.) became the first American team to win gold at the Senior World Curling Championships since 2002 when the team defeated Canada, 4-3, April 24 to win the 2010 title with a perfect 7-0 record. This was just the second title ever for the U.S. at this competition. The U.S. men had previously won five silver medals, a bronze and one gold since the event began in 2002.
Each National Governing Body may nominate up to but no more than one female, one male and one team per discipline. The winners are then voted on from that pool of nominees.