UCLA junior gymnast Vanessa Zamarripa earned herself a spot on the U.S. National Team after finishing in eighth place at the Visa Championships in Hartford, Conn., on Saturday.
Competing in the senior women’s division of the U.S. National Championships, Zamarripa stood in seventh place following the first round of competition on Thursday. After the second and final round of competition on Saturday evening, she held on to finish in eighth place with an all-around score of 111.400, just under nine points behind Rebecca Bross, who placed first with a score of 120.300.
“I had a lot of fun out there, and it was different because I didn’t have my team behind me,” Zamarripa said.
Earlier this year, Zamarripa helped lead the UCLA gymnastics team to its sixth NCAA team title. Along the way, she won the NCAA vault championship and was named Pac-10 Gymnast of the Year.
“At the NCAA Championships, I felt a little bit more nervous than I did at USA’s today,” she said. “It’s kind of weird.”
Nerves were not a problem for Zamarripa, as she ended Saturday with scores of 13.900 on vault, 14.200 on uneven bars, 13.100 on balance beam and 13.750 on floor exercise. Compared to her results on Thursday, she improved her scores in every event except vault.
Zamarripa’s first vault attempt on Saturday, a difficult combination of spins and flips, had the highest potential score of any event in the competition, but she was unable to stick the landing when her knees hit the mat. She was able to recover on her second attempt when she needed only a step to land a Yurchenko full.
In order to be considered a specialist in the event, Zamarripa was required to perform two vaults on each day of the competition, with the two scores then averaged to produce one score per day.
With a two-day total of 28.675, Zamarripa finished second in vault behind Alicia Sacramone, who scored 30.675.
Zamarripa also competed against UCLA signee Mattie Larson, who finished in second place with an all-around score of 117.000. Larson was also selected to the U.S. National Team after placing first on floor exercise with a score of 30.350 and third on uneven bars with a score of 29.000.