Philadelphia – 2000 Olympian Sean Townsend (Dallas, Texas) finished on top of the preliminary competition this evening at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships, scoring a 54.175 in the all-around and winning four event medals.
Townsend won three event gold medals and one silver medal. He took first in the floor exercise with a 9.325, the still rings with a 9.350 and parallel bars with a 9.350. He also took a silver on vault with a 9.350.
Winning the pommel horse was Brett McClure (Mill Creek, Wash.) with a score of 9.100. McClure finished second in all-around with a score of 53.125 and took home bronze medals in vault (9.300) and parallel bars (9.200).
Jason Furr (Woodbridge, Pa.) won gold on vault with a 9.400, silver on parallel bars (9.250) and bronze on rings with a score of 9.200.
Taking gold on the high bar was Daniel Diaz-Luong (Harrisburg, Pa.). He also finished fourth in the all-around with a score of 51.825.
Junior Division
Jamie Henderson (Kansas City, Mo.) took the national championship in the 16-18 age group while Willie Ito (Hungtington Beach, Calif.) won the all-around in the 14-15 year old division.
“I’ve been working very hard the past couple weeks,” said Henderson. “My goal was to win it and I did it.”
“It feels amazing to be the national champion and I just want to stay healthy and keep training hard,” said Ito. “My goal coming in was just to finish in the top seven.”
Men’s competition resumes Friday evening. Women’s competition begins Thursday with juniors at 1:00 p.m. and seniors at 7:00 p.m.