Spring ready to go

Justin Spring, the Burke native/Lake Braddock HS resident, will make his Olympic debut during the men's gymnastics team qualifying. On Wednesday, the entire men's team plus several coaches were shuttled over to the Main Press Center for interviews. A couple of Spring-related notes... *Spring said his ankle isn't a lot better with the six-plus weeks of not competing but he's been doing full workouts. "It's hard training to a peak so many times in a month or so but I think Im on track again," he said as coach Jon Valdez snapped pictures of Spring being interviewed by three reporters. "I'm ready to compete." *Valdez said Spring will compete in five events on Saturday -- high bar, parallel bars, floor exercise, vault and rings. The men's scoring format is six events, five athletes per event, four best scores count. *Valdez isn't an "official" member of the U.S. coaching staff so he'll have to sit in the stands. *Spring will not be the second U.S. gymnast in the all-around competition. Jonathan Horton is the first and the coaches must decide on a second. The reason Spring isn't a candidate is that injuries prevented him from training and then competing on the pommel horse. *Spring's parents, girlfriend and sibling will be making the trip to China. *Note for readers. The night owls will like this -- the U.S. is in the first round of qualifying, which starts at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.