New age rule means Ross will have to wait to get on gymnastics big stage

Rule means longer wait for new junior champ

DALLAS — Twelve-year-old Kyla Ross won the junior national title Saturday, a victory that sets her up as one of the young women to watch for the next four years.

Just don’t expect to see her much.

Ross will turn 16 in 2012 and be eligible for the London Olympics, but a new international rule will prevent her from competing in senior events until that year. It means she’ll still be a junior in 2011, which will prevent her from competing at the very important world championships that precede the Games.

For comparison’s sake, Shawn Johnson was 15 in 2007 and she got to compete at worlds, where she won the all-around title. Carly Patterson was 15 in 2003, finished second at worlds and won the Olympic gold medal in 2004.

“I don’t like it,” national team coordinator Martha Karolyi said. “The girls are more than capable of competing at that level at 15.”

Though nobody at USA Gymnastics has received an explanation from the International Gymnastics Federation for the rule change, FIG president Bruno Grandi has long been known as a fan of older, more elegant gymnasts.

A controversy about the age of China’s gold-medal gymnasts overshadowed last year’s Olympics, and though an investigation cleared the 2008 gymnasts, not everyone is convinced.

“It’s a stupid rule,” Bela Karolyi said. “If you’re going to have a rule but you can’t enforce it, don’t be so stubborn.”

Ross can’t yet be considered a shoo-in for the 2012 American team. Her victory came in part because 14-year-old Jordyn Wieber, who won the America Cup earlier this year and is widely considered America’s top junior, was out with an injury.

Wieber was selected to the junior national team despite the injury. She is more than a year older than Ross and won’t face the same restrictions in 2011.

Ross’ coach, Jenny Zhang, said it would be ideal for her pupil to compete as a senior in 2011, but isn’t overly concerned. Martha Karolyi said she expects to find plenty of junior international competitions for Ross to enter.

“They start at Level 6 and go to 7, 8, 9 and on and on,” Zhang said. “They’ve had plenty of experience competing. As long as they’re getting some international assignments at the junior level, it’s OK with me.”

SHAWN’S NEXT MOVE: Shawn Johnson will take her senior year of high school through online courses.

She’s following up her winning turn on “Dancing With The Stars,” with some more TV appearances, including “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” and “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.”

It has been a whirlwind for the All-American kid from Iowa, who said she really struggled with the decision not to head back to Valley High in West Des Moines for her final year. Her future in gymnastics is undecided. She says she wishes she’d wake up one day and have clarity on what to do.

“My whole life has been planned and set for so long,” she said. “And right now, I don’t know what to do next. It makes me crazy sometimes because I really don’t know.”

Not that she’s complaining.

The Olympic all-around silver medalist said the opportunities that have come along with being a star — and dancing with stars — have been wonderful and she’d do it all again.

As for gymnastics?

“In my mind, the plan is to have a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer, definite, in writing, by the end of the year,” she said. “That gives me a chance to get back in the gym, get in shape, see if I can still do it.”

MEN’S WORLDS: Coaches picked the six-man roster to compete at world championships in October. Surprisingly, David Sender’s name was on the list.

Sender finished 10th at nationals after a mistake-filled second night of competition but still made the six-man team announced Saturday thanks to some twists in the complicated men’s selection criteria. He was also selected to the national team but is expected to vacate both positions because he’s committed to attending veterinary school at Illinois in the fall.

This weekend, he’s loading up the car and heading to Champaign.

“I’m going to use the first semester to try to see if there’s some way I can somehow be part of the sport, whether through training or coaching or something,” Sender said.

But he stuck to his vow to not be on the team that heads to London in October. Last year, he won the national title but the selection committee didn’t place him on the Olympic team after an injury kept him out of trials.

Also making the team were new national champion Jonathan Horton, runner-up Tim McNeill, fifth-place finisher Danell Leyva and Steven Legendre. The sixth spot went to Sasha Artemev, who did not compete this week because of a back injury and will have to show he’s ready at a training camp next month.

Coaches told him they want him to concentrate only on parallel bars and pommel horse.

“That makes the task a lot easier,” Artemev said. “I should be good to go.”

The three alternates, one of whom will get Sender’s spot when he steps down, were Jake Dalton, Wes Haagensen and Daniel Ribero. Haagensen missed the team despite a third-place finish Friday.

ROPES AND MATS: 2008 Olympians Samantha Peszek and Chellsie Memmel along with injured gymnasts Sam Shapiro and Mattie Larsen were among those selected to the 16-person women’s national team, which gives them a chance to compete for one of the four spots on the world team. Other spots went to the top eight finishers at nationals. Nastia Liukin also got a spot. The worlds team will be announced in October after a pair of training camps. … Ava Gehringer of Evanston, Ill., won the rhythmic national championship. … NBC announced it will televise the Nastia Cup, an event for top-level gymnasts to be held before the American Cup next year.