Logan Dooley competes on the trampoline at the 2016 USA Gymnastics Championships at the Dunkin' Donuts Center on June 11, 2016 in Providence, R.I.
Logan Dooley and Nicole Ahsinger, Team USA’s trampoline gymnasts at the Olympic Games Rio 2016, lead the U.S. team into the World Trampoline and Tumbling Championships this week. The four-day event begins Thursday in Arena Armeec in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Dooley and Ahsinger are among 23 U.S. trampoline and tumbling gymnasts in the competition. Also leading the U.S. is 2017 World Games double-mini trampoline champion Paige Howard.
The world championships feature more than 700 athletes from 36 nations. The competition consists of trampoline, synchronized trampoline, double mini-trampoline and tumbling.
Trampoline was added to the Olympic program in 2000.
Dooley, who finished 11th in men’s trampoline in Rio, leads a group of five U.S. athletes in the men’s trampoline event. In addition to making his Olympic debut last year, Dooley was a U.S. Olympic Team alternate in 2008 and 2012.
He placed eighth in synchro trampoline at the 2015 world championships. He was seventh in men’s trampoline at the 2015 Pan American Games.
Joining him in trampoline are reigning U.S. champion Jeffrey Gluckstein, Isaac Rowley, Aliaksei Shostak and 2014 Youth Olympian Cody Gesuelli, who is an alternate for the individual competition. They are all chasing China’s Dong Dong, the 2012 Olympic champion who is seeking a record seventh world championship individual medal.
Ahsinger, who made her Olympic debut in Rio, is among four U.S. women in the trampoline competition. She is a 2014 Youth Olympian who finished fifth at the Youth Olympic Games Nanjing 2014 and 15th in Rio. She also made her world championship debut in 2015 and was sixth this year in synchro in the World Games.
Joining her are Hally Piontek, Jessica Stevens and Sarah Webster.
The trampoline competition begins Thursday with qualification rounds. The finals in both individual men’s and women’s trampoline wrap up the world championships on Sunday (beginning at 9:25 a.m. ET).
Qualifications for men’s and women’s synchro trampoline is Friday. The finals are Saturday (beginning at 10:50 a.m. ET).
The U.S. synchro teams are Gesuelli/Rowley and Gluckstein/Shostak on the men’s side, and Piontek/Stevens and Ahsinger/Webster for the women.
Additionally, the women’s and men’s trampoline team finals are Friday night.
The U.S. has eight athletes in the double mini-trampoline competition. Qualifications are Friday, followed by the men’s finals Saturday and the women’s finals Sunday. Team finals for men are Friday, and the women are Saturday.
U.S. men’s competitors are Matthew Hawkins, Austin Nacey, Alex Renkert and CJ Rhoades.
Competing in the women’s double mini are Howard, Tristan Van Natta and Piontek.
Nacey, a silver medalist in tumbling in the 2017 World Games, leads a U.S. group of 10 (five men, five women) in the tumbling competition. The qualifications are Thursday. The women’s tumbling team final is Friday, followed by the women’s individual final and men’s team final Saturday, and men’s individual final Sunday.
Paul D. Bowker is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
