Sooners Set for Worlds Selection Camp

NORMAN – Three former University of Oklahoma gymnasts head to Colorado Springs, Colo., this weekend to participate in the World Team Selection Camp at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center.

2019 graduate Yul Moldauer and 2017 alumni Allan Bower and Colin Van Wicklen will look to secure spots on the team that will travel to Stuttgart, Germany, for the 2019 World Championships Oct. 4-13. Five competing members will be chosen this weekend plus one traveling alternate.

The three U.S. national team gymnasts, who all still train in Norman at the Sam Viersen Gymnastics Center, qualified to the camp based on their performances at the 2019 U.S. Championships in Kansas City, Mo., last month.

Moldauer took the all-around silver medal and second-place finishes on floor exercise and parallel bars. Bower posted a sixth-place finish and a bronze medal spot on pommel horse. Van Wicklen withdrew from competition due to a concussion suffered in warmups prior to the meet, but was successfully petitioned on to Team USA and the World Camp roster.

"I hope that we can have the same result that we had when we were in Kansas City this weekend," said OU head coach Mark Williams. "Yul is in a great position having been second coming out of the U.S. Championships, he just kind of has to manage his body so that he's feeling good for Thursday and Saturday. Allan is kind of in the position where he could probably help himself a little bit on some events, maybe move up a little bit and hopefully have a better shot in being in that group of five. His training is going very well so I expect that he should be pretty ready to go.

"For Colin, his selection will be one-hundred percent based on what he does this weekend after having an injury at Championships. They'll be looking to see if he's well prepared, if he's in good health, if he competes at the level I would expect. I certainly think that he should be in the mix. He's going to have to do twelve pretty good routines to put himself back in that group."

The four-day camp will include a two-day competition Thursday and Saturday before the selections will be determined at the end of the weekend. The camp will be available to watch via livestream Thursday beginning at noon CT and Saturday at 3:30 p.m. CT on the USA Gymnastics YouTube Channel.

At last year's World Championships in Doha, Qatar, Moldauer and Van Wicklen were named to the five-man competing team while Bower was named the traveling alternate. The trio helped Team USA to a fourth-place finish in the team competition. Additionally, Moldauer placed fourth in the floor exercise event final and 12th in the all-around final. The 18-time OU All-American won a World medal in 2017 on floor exercise, taking bronze in Montreal.

This year's installment of the World Championships in Stuttgart will determine the final nine team spots that will compete at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

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Allan Bower

On his expectations for camp:
"I'm just going to go in and treat it like a new day and I'm not going to let the past affect anything that I do. I can set my future by going in and hitting a good pommel set, good floor set, good high bar set, good P-bar set and really just try to be clean on rings. I'm just going to try and get some sticks and try to enjoy the process, just trust the training that I've been doing."

Yul Moldauer

On his mentality heading to camp:
"Again, it's nice to have Allan and Colin with me there, it's always nice having teammates with you. Mentally, you just have to go in there and do your job. What you've been practicing in here, you just have to go and do it out there. You can't put that pressure that's it has to be perfect. You just go out there and do your job, Colin does his job and Allan does his job, I'm sure the selection committee will have a hard time not choosing us. You've just got to focus on what we've been doing here and not really focus on who they're going to select or how they're going to select it. You go in there with each other, cheer for each other, and hopefully make the world team together."

Colin Van Wicklen

On his expectations for camp:
"I had kind of an unfortunate injury at (U.S.) championships, so I wasn't really able to show what I can do. Now, I have a great opportunity in front of me to go hit twelve routines and make a statement that I'm one of the top guys in the country on a few events and that I belong on the world team."

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