The U.S. men's program has made some changes to its leadership and the to rules for the upcoming Olympic Cycle. Chief amont them is the decision to eliminate the controversial difficulty (D) score bonus system for the 2025 Winter Cup. For fans who were excited about the prospect of no more D score bonus system, disappointment awaits because that will only be reality for the 2025 Winter Cup and competitions in 2028. The D score bonus will be added back in for the 2025  Classic and 2025 U.S. Championships Championships, and likely all of 2026 and 2027 as well. 

Those in charge of making those decisions are the members of the Men's Program Committe (MPC). While Mike Serra remains the chair, the rest of the MPC recently underwent several changes in personnel.

Sr. Coaching Reps: (voing members)

Randy Jepson (Penn State head coach) - remained.

Tom Meadows (Cypress Gymnastics Academy) - replaced Mark Williams (Oklahoma Head Coach)

Jr. Coaching Reps: (voing members)

Pavel Sarsyan (Gymnastics Olympica USA)

Matt Henry (GymTek Academy) - replaced Sergei Pakanich (EV0)

Athlete Reps: (voing members)

Cameron Bock (Michigan) - replaced Sam Phillips (Nebraska/Illinois)

Tyler Yamauchi (Illinois/American Ninja Warrior) - replaced Kip Simons (Navy head coach)

Judging Rep: (voice, no vote)

Jon Corbitt - replaced Mike Juszcyk

Men's Development Program Committee Rep: (voice, no vote)

David Klein (no change)

USAG Staff (voice, no vote) - no changes

Jason Woodnick ( VP of men’s gymnastics)

Brett McClure (High Performance Director)

Raj Bhavsar (Development Program Director)

Lisa Mendel (Men’s Program Manager) 

USA Gymnastics Men's Program Difficulty Bonus System

The MPC decided that no bonus system would be in place for Winter Cup in 2025. Their reasoning was that any bonus system would be developed using little to no data. [NOTE: If you missed it, men’s gymnastics got the biggest overhaul to the code of points since they went from the 10.0 to the open-ended system in 2006; and, no one has any idea what scores or routines are going to look like so trying to create a bonus system with little relevant data would be difficult.] 

Therefore, the MPC voted unanimously to not have the D score bonus at Winter Cup, but to put the D score bonus back in place for 2025 Development Nationals, U.S. Classic, and U.S. Championships. The plan as of now would be to use the completed D score bonus for the remaining meets in 2025 and all 2026, reduce the bonus system in 2027, and eliminate it in 2028. This mirrors what happened in this past Olympic Cycle where the U.S. men took home the bronze medal in Paris. 

Of note, the five athletes who were members of the bronze-medal winning team in Paris (Paul Juda, Stephen Nedoroscik, Frederick Richard, Asher Hong, and Brody Malone) as well as the two traveling alternates (Shane Wiskus and Khoi Young) will receive an automatic place on the Winter National Team. Because the four Senior Development Team athletes (Tate Costa, Josh Karnes, Kiran Mandava, and Kai Uemera) also maintain a spot on the National Team til U.S. Championships in August, over half of the Winter National Team spots have been claimed. Only nine spots remain to be filled from Winter Cup.

2025 U.S. Gymnastics Championships

Looking ahead, USA Gymnastics just announced that the 2025 U.S. Championships are going to take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the MPC has some big decisions to make about how athletes are going to qualify. Previously, athletes could use the NCAA Championships as a qualifier to the U.S. Championships, but thanks to the new rules changes I mentioned above, the NCAA Championships will no longer be viewed as a viable qualification route. The MPC has another meeting at the end of November to finalize future qualification proceedings.

MPC Documents

SSC Documents

Want more information? Watch the video below!

Article by: Kensley Behel

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