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Rotation two, ups, downs and happy birthday

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PHILADELPHIA -- Chellsie Memmel turns 20 Monday and Bridget Sloan turns 16. Signs are up in the Wachovia Center with birthday wishes. Each has only one wish: making that Olympic team.

Also, 16-year-old Mackenzie Caquatto of Naperville, Ill., was a late scratch Sunday. While U.S. gymnastics officials did not immediately give a reason, it was later learned that Caquatto, who was not in contention for an Olympic spot, apparently pulled a hamstring.

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UP: Nastia Liukin moved ahead of Shawn Johnson in the all-around standings with her jam-packed balance beam routine that scored 15.850.

Young Mattie Larson did a second straight solid routine -- uneven bars this time. Her routine isn’t packed with difficulty (she scored 14.900), but when the selection committee is considering alternates they’ll look for someone who is steady and can be put up on any apparatus in team qualifying and who will not have a big miss. Shawn Johnson’s coach Liang Chow gave Larson a big hug. Bela Karolyi jumped to his feet when Chellsie Memmel sped through a pointy-toed, high-swinging, stuck-landing uneven bars routine. She beat bars queen Nastia Liukin with her score of 16.400.

Because she is soft-spoken and steady, because she isn’t quite good enough to challenge Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin, because she is usually third or fourth and reliably on her way to making the Olympic team, Samantha Peszek gets overlooked. Peszek just posted

a 15.550 on balance beam while the crowd was still buzzing about Memmel’s bars brilliance. Sam’s the middle child who won’t get noticed but count on this: She will matter in Beijing.

Bela rated Jana Bieger’s balance beam routine highly as well. He was jumping again. Bieger was solid through her beam work and raised chalk dust with her solid landing and 15.450 score.

DOWN: Not in a horrible way but Johnson had two straight landings with an added step. her difficulty on the vault kept Johnson’s score high, but on the uneven bars the extra step lowered Johnson’s score to 15.350. That kind of untidy mistake could cost Johnson at the Olympic all-around competition.

Most dramatic fall of the trials and perhaps the most costly, Shayla Worley missed the upper bar on a big release move and landed face first on the mat. That’s the best way to land on such a fall, but having the fall at all is a big negative for Worley. She didn’t participate in nationals while nursing a sore back. Her best hope for making this team is that uneven bars is her strength and a U.S. weakness. Her score of 14.200 isn’t any help at all to the team.

Sloan, meanwhile, is struggling. Down she falls from the balance beam and nearly goes headfirst into the beam on her landing.

Ivana Hong had two big wobbles and then landed on her bottom on the dismount. Her score of 14.450 was a dramatic downswing from the 15.750 Hong had posted Thursday. The selection committee wants to see steady improvement and not deteriorating nerves.

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-- Diane Pucin

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