U.S. Women Place Second After 2001 World Championships Qualification

Schwikert, Yim and Bhardwaj Advance to All-Around Finals
Ghent, Belgium – The U.S. women’s team finished second after the qualification round (competition I) of the 2001 World Gymnastics Championships, advancing them to the team finals competition and Tasha Schwikert (Las Vegas, Nev.), Tabitha Yim (Irvine, Calif.) and Mohini Bhardwaj (Los Angeles, Calif.) to the all-around finals.
“We’re going to come in here and be strong in the finals,” said Tasha Schwikert after competition on Monday….

October 29, 2001

Schwikert, Yim and Bhardwaj Advance to All-Around Finals

Ghent, Belgium – The U.S. women’s team finished second after the qualification round (competition I) of the 2001 World Gymnastics Championships, advancing them to the team finals competition and Tasha Schwikert (Las Vegas, Nev.), Tabitha Yim (Irvine, Calif.) and Mohini Bhardwaj (Los Angeles, Calif.) to the all-around finals.

“We’re going to come in here and be strong in the finals,” said Tasha Schwikert after competition on Monday. “We competed great as a team and vault and floor went really well for me today. It was a little hard competing in the first subdivision, but we can’t control what happens with the draw. We just go in there and do our job and hope that everything falls into place.”

The U.S. women competed in subdivision one of eight subdivisions. They competed Monday evening and qualification competition concluded Tuesday evening. There are 27 countries competing in the women’s event. The top eight countries advanced to finals, including: 1. Romania (146.646), 2. USA (145.147), 3. Netherlands (144.159), 4. Russia (144.134), 5. Spain (142.797), 6. Australia (141.483), 7. Ukraine (140.559), and 8. Germany (138.747).

USA Women’s Team members advancing to the Individual Event Finals include: Bhardwaj [V], Ashley Miles (San Antonio, Texas) [V], Katie Heenan (Burke, Va.) [UB], Schwikert [BB, FX], Rachel Tidd (San Marcos, Calif.) [BB], and Yim [FX].

“I think we did really well as a team today,” said Tabitha Yim. “We really helped each other out a lot. It was great out there. We got so excited and pumped up, it was a really great feeling. Competing at a World Championships is the most excited I’ve felt in my entire life.”

“Our team feels very united because we’ve been doing a lot of team bonding and we’ve had Pan Ams and training camps together,” said Mohini Bhardwaj. “We have a lot of fun together. We’re trying to really focus on our team right now, and that keeps us up and doing well.”

The qualification round (competition I) is extremely important as it advances gymnasts to the team finals (competition IV), all-around competition (competition II) and the event finals (competition III). For the first time ever, a 6-3-3 (previously 6-5-4) format will be used in team finals, which means that a team is composed of a maximum six gymnasts, three of which perform on an apparatus and all three scores count. The top 32 individual gymnasts from qualification advance to the all-around finals on Friday, November 2. The best eight scores per apparatus from qualification advance to the event finals, scheduled for November 3 and 4.