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Payne, Moors impress at American Cup gymnastics meet

Olympic hopefuls Victoria Moors of Cambridge, Ont. and Jackson Payne of Edmonton made the most of last-minute invitations to the prestigious American Cup gymnastics meet on Saturday, placing fourth and seventh all around respectively in a top-calibre international field.

Moors and Payne were offered a chance to participate at the American Cup on very short notice, replacing two German athletes who withdrew with injuries. Both flipped at the chance but admitted they were not as prepared for the meet as they would have liked.

Moors, 15, a potential Olympic medalist on floor exercise, finished ahead of highly ranked competitors from Romania, Germany, Australia and Great Britain with a total score of 56.365 points.

The teenage dynamo delivered her best performance on floor with a score of 14.766 points and also showed an impressive double-twisting Yurchenko vault, landing solidly for 14.733 points.

“I think I did pretty well for myself,” said Moors, who was also particularly pleased with her beam routine, an event she’s not well known for and has been working hard to improve.

“Beam is my so-so event, where I’m always the most nervous,” she said.

Moors passed her first major test as a senior competitor in January at the last Olympic qualification meet where her clutch performances on vault and floor helped the Canadian women to a second place team finish and one of just 12 full team berths at the Games.

Payne, who finished seventh in the eight-man field with an overall mark of 84.198, felt the lack of prep time affected his performance.

“I haven’t really been focusing very much on an all-around score since the London event in January,” said Payne. “I’ve been working mostly on parallel bars, high bar and pommel horse, and going through the all-around was the first time since the London meet.”

Payne received his highest score of the competition on high bar but struggles on floor and vault effectively ended his chances of challenging for the American Cup title.

As Canada’s top individual competitor at the London Olympic qualifier, Payne is a leading contender to earn the country’s lone spot at the Games in men’s gymnastics after the team just missed qualifying a full squad.

“I still need to show that I can perform the way that I can through the next few months and to show them that I can be that guy at the Olympics for Canada,” he said.

World champion Jordyn Wieber of the United States easily defended the women’s American Cup all around title she won last year, scoring 61.032 points. Teammate Alexandra Raisman finished second with 60.832 points and Romania’s Larisa Iordache place third at 59.322.

In the men’s competition, 2011 world parallel bars champion Danell Leyva of the U.S. came from behind during the last event to win the men’s all around title with 90.664 points, ahead of Ukraine’s Mykola Kuksenkov (90.498 points) and Germany’s Marcel Nguyen (89.925 points).