Jun. 26—MINNEAPOLIS — The best gymnasts in the United States have converged on Minneapolis this week for a chance to represent their country at the 2024 Olympics in Paris in a little over a month.
Minneapolis hosts the Olympic Trials for gymnastics,
part of a week-long celebration and competition that runs June 27 through June 30.
Sixteen women and 20 men will compete on alternate days, starting with the men on Thursday and culminating with the women on Sunday.
Women’s gymnastics, a marquee event of the summer Olympics, is arguably the most-watched and followed event among U.S. fans.
Probably half the field of women have a legitimate shot at making the five-member team, with Simone Biles, Shilese Jones, Minnesota’s own Suni Lee of St. Paul, Jordan Chiles and Kayla DiCello among the athletes often mentioned.
Somewhere in the press rows at Target Center, I will write about the exciting performances ahead, but also about my own experiences competing at the 1976 Olympic Trials in Los Angeles.
As a 14-year-old from Dickinson, North Dakota, training on a high school team in an old community building with a young coach, it was implausible that I could have a shot at the Olympics.
Almost 50 years later, it still seems crazy that I came so close, with the stars seemingly aligned for a ticket to the Summer Games in Montreal, until suddenly, they weren’t.
Talking about the experiences leading up to the 1976 Trials was and still is complicated for me, rekindling feelings of excitement and accomplishment, but also pain and disappointment.
My quest to make the Olympic team began about a year and a half before the 1976 Trials but was rooted in a dream dating further back.
At age 9, I convinced my parents to sign me up for gymnastics in Dickinson, based on a brochure sent home at the end of the school year offering instruction in vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise.
The word “vault” had caught my eye because I wanted to learn how to pole vault.
The misunderstanding was realized as soon as I walked into the high school gym that day, but it was only a momentary setback and I took to the sport almost immediately.
Coach Les Fischer saw potential in me early on, and with approval from my parents, I began more intensive training for Junior Olympic meets.
I learned to balance school, high school gymnastics and competition in more difficult arenas.
Successes there led to an interest in trying to join the Elite ranks, from which national team, world team and Olympic team members were chosen.
Steadily jumping through the hoops of regional qualifying, then regional meets, national qualifying and national meets, my trajectory started looking solid.
Based on performances in some of those meets, I was named to the U.S. national team in 1975, traveling to Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan, for competitions.
In early April 1976, assignments brought me to Moscow and Riga in the former Soviet Union, where I finished fourth all-around behind three Russians.
Forum sportswriter Curt Monson wrote about me not getting a lot of recognition from U.S. judges at the time but that reports in Moscow newspapers helped my cause because they said I had “won over” the crowds there.
A little more than a week after returning home, I was off again to New Haven, Connecticut, for the USA Championships.
Around that time, my mom, Pam Huebner, had a funny quote in the newspaper.
“We just leave the suitcase open in the living room. We take the dirty clothes out and put the clean ones in,” she said about the constant travel.
In New Haven, during the third and final night of competition, I came out on top, earning the title of USA Elite Masters Champion.
The performance also guaranteed me a spot at the Olympic Trials less than a month away.
Afterward, while my coach was optimistic, he pointed out that between high school and elite, I’d been competing for nearly two years straight without a break.
“Our strategy is to keep Robin’s mental attitude up,” he said. “She’s a perfectionist.”
In another story in The Forum, reporter Monson interviewed Frank Bare, head of the U.S. Gymnastics Federation, then the governing body of the sport, now known as USA Gymnastics.
Asked about my chances for making the Olympic team, Bare said three other top-ranked U.S. gymnasts at the time were either injured or out of the country and received exemptions to the Trials based on what they’d done in the past.
“But Robin is the No. 1 gymnast in the country right now,” Bare was quoted as saying at the time.
Barely two weeks before the Trials, I was part of a team of six to compete in Hamburg, West Germany, to qualify the U.S. team to the Olympic Games, which we accomplished.
During our travels back, I overheard a conversation among the adults about doing whatever it took to ensure that a particular gymnast, who was coming off an injury, made the team.
I was caught off guard by the comment, even though my coach had warned it was possible I would help qualify the U.S. to Montreal but still not actually make the team.
An archive story stated, “He (Fischer) said he wanted to prepare Huebner for the possibility that although she has the skill to make the team, the ‘political’ aspects might prevent that from happening.”
During the short time between the meets in Hamburg and Los Angeles, there was tension between my coach and me.
The pressures had been building for some time, and I recall he was away from the gym during some of my training, which added more stress.
I felt the weight of the world, or at least North Dakota, on my shoulders going into the Trials.
The ’76 Trials was a three-day competition between 26 women.
On the beam, my second event of day one, I wobbled a few times, touching my hand for support at one point, resulting in a low 8.45 score.
I regrouped quickly, moving from 22nd place in the compulsory round to 18th after the first round of optionals.
“Huebner off to bad start,” the newspaper headline read the next day.
I fought back but the hole was too deep, ending in 15th place.
Six athletes and one alternate went off to Montreal a month later: Kathy Howard, Kolleen Casey, Kim Chace, Debbie Wilcox, Carrie Englert, Leslie Wolfsberger and Jodi Yocum.
Five of those who traveled to Hamburg with me in May, along with two others, all made the team, while I did not. All were older than me and from established clubs in California, Texas, Florida and the Twin Cities.
Barely a month after the Trials, my coach submitted his resignation to the Dickinson school board, citing “personal problems” for his departure.
Only many years later did I find out those “problems” were the likely source of his absence from the gym and a factor in our strained relationship before Trials.
I remained on the U.S. national team for another year, traveling to South Africa for meets in Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town in the fall of 1976.
Soon after, I moved to Minneapolis and in April 1977 was picked for the Champions All meet in London, where I claimed third all-around.
Nadia Comaneci of Romania, who became a sensation and the first to score a perfect 10 in Montreal, performed in London but in an exhibition role.
It would be my last international meet, as knee injuries that required multiple surgeries put any hopes for more Elite competition to rest.
I was able to rehabilitate my knee and went on to have a successful career competing for the University of Minnesota.
In a St. Paul newspaper article from 1983 before my college career came to an end, I stated that my only regret was not making an Olympic team.
Come Sunday at Target Center, some gymnasts’ dreams, like mine, will be crushed.
Others are seeking redemption. Lee, Carey and Chiles are all aiming to return to the team for a second time, while Biles is going for her third Olympics.
Biles looks to join Muriel Grossfeld, Linda Metheny and Dominique Dawes as the only American women to compete in three Olympic Games, according to USAG records.
Being there to watch it all unfold will be a thrill and truly a full-circle moment for me.
