Pacific Rim notebook: Brothers competing for Olympic spot

EVERETT — Two athletes, one family, and the potential of only one spot on the upcoming United States Olympic team.

For brothers and trampoline competitors Steven and Jeffrey Gluckstein of Atlantic Highlands, N.J., the coming months will determine if either one will represent the United States at this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The Glucksteins, who will compete in Friday’s men’s senior team competition at the Pacific Rim Championships, are two of the nation’s best in trampoline. Steven Gluckstein was a 2012 Olympian — “It was incredible. An athlete’s Disney World,” he said — and he is bidding to make the team again this year, though his younger brother is also in the running.

So what is it like when his brother is one of his closest U.S. competitors?

“A lot of people are like, ‘Is it hard? Is it terrible?’ And I say, ‘Absolutely not.’ I push him, he pushes me, and we both get better,” said Steven Gluckstein, who is 25. “Competition is a great thing. He might do something better than me, and so I try to one-up him and do it better than him.

“But when we’re out on the floor it’s a little bit stressful watching him because I want the best for him,” he said.

Competing against a sibling “is a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but it’s nothing new,” said 23-year-old Jeffrey Gluckstein. “We’ve been doing this ever since 2009, which was the first year we started to compete against each other (as seniors). … It’s a double-edged sword. You want the best for your brother, but you also want the best for yourself.”

By failing to place two athletes in the top eight at last fall’s world championships, the U.S. will have, at best, one Olympic spot this year. For that to happen, an American must have a top-eight finish at an Olympic Test Event in Rio de Janeiro later this month _ the field will include places 9-24 from the recent world championships _ and then there would be a subsequent U.S. competition to determine which athlete lands on the Olympic team.

“Hopefully it’ll be one of us,” Jeffrey Gluckstein said of himself and his brother. With a smile he added, “I personally hope it’s me.”

Nations on hand

As of Thursday afternoon, 18 nations will compete in Everett this weekend.

The participating countries are Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore and the United States.

Not all nations will compete in every event. Russia, for example, sent only its trampoline athletes to the championships.

Also, some countries were sending only senior competitors (18 and over for men, 16 and over for women), and some were sending combinations of seniors and juniors. Japan sent only junior athletes for its men’s gymnastics team.

New faces

Though teammates Aly Raisman and Simone Biles are veterans of the United States women’s gymnastics national team, this week’s Pacific Rim Championships will also include some promising newcomers.

Among them, Laurie Hernandez and Ragan Smith. Both are just 15, but both will turn 16 this summer and thus be eligible for the U.S. team to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

For Hernandez, this will be her second international event as a senior, following an event in Italy last month.

“Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve wanted to go to the Olympics,” said Hernandez, who lives in Dacula, Ga. “The past two years I’ve been taking steps and getting closer, and now it’s right there and I can taste it.”

Smith, who lives in Lewisville, Texas, started attending U.S. training camps as a junior in 2013, “and I was like, ‘Oh, there’s Gabby (Douglas). Oh, there’s Simone.’ I was like freaking out.”

Smith, who was added to the U.S. team for this weekend’s championships due to a recent knee injury suffered by Maggie Nichols, said the Olympics have “always been my dream. As a kid I was watching the 2008 Olympics and the 2012 Olympics and (saying), ‘Oh, I want to do that so bad. That’s where I want to be, that’s what I want to do.’”