It would be a celebration or a commiseration, but the backyard barbecue was going to happen if Sean Golden made it or not.
As it turned out, the party on Dayton Street in Camden, N.J., gave Golden the support he needed. Golden did not make the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team.
"It's definitely nice to be here," said Golden, as dozens of family and friends milled in and out of his parents' tidy, small house. "These are the people who have been with me through thick and thin."
Yesterday was decidedly thin.
The sacrifice, the risk, the expense, the pain - for 20 years, Golden and his family endured it. The unlikeliest prospective Olympian, the youngest of six, raised in the depths of one of the nation's most crime-ridden cities, Golden last night understood and accepted.
"It was a tough team to make," said Golden, who, at 24, is considering an attempt to make the 2012 team.
Golden not only was left off the six-man Olympic team but he also was not named as one of the three alternates. For 11 hours Saturday and yesterday the five-person selection committee crunched numbers and considered 49 scenarios. It took them 2 hours longer than they expected, projecting the best team from results at the Visa Championships last month and the men's 2-day trials held Thursday and Saturday at the Wachovia Center.
Golden was a casualty of the system: "Any time somebody puts so much of himself into something and doesn't get the result they want, it's disappointing."
But not embittering.
"I definitely think they have the best Olympic team," Golden said. "I've said all along, if the best team doesn't have me on it, so be it."
With an eye toward beating the favored host, China, the committee weighted gymnasts' consistency and versatility - the latter, especially, given the possible complications surrounding ace all-around performer Paul Hamm, who did not compete due to a broken bone in his right hand suffered last month but who was named to the team anyway.
"We had to find replacements who could back Paul up," said Ron Brant, the national team coordinator and a committee member.
In 10 days, Hamm said, he is scheduled to see doctors and hopes to gain clearance to resume gymnastics activities. He will try to prove his hand's soundness July 22 at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Hamm and Jonathan Horton, the trials' all-around top finisher, were named to the Olympic team Saturday. Golden and the rest had to wait to find out their fate.
