Chasing title Hurd to do
World champ goes after 1st U.S. crown
If any of the worldrenowned universities in Boston had a Division 1 women’s gymnastics team, Morgan Hurd would be their ideal recruit — intelligent, book-loving, wellspoken and the reigning world champion.
Hurd, known for her positive personality and her trademark Rec-Specs (she finds contacts irritating), comes into this weekend’s U.S. Gymnastics Championships at the Garden as something else Boston sports fans and teams around here tend to like: The underdog.
How can the world champion be an underdog? Because of the return of Olympic champion Simone Biles, who will take the floor for her first national championships in two years.
“She’s the greatest of all-time,” said Hurd before a Wednesday training session with Biles. “She’s so amazing. I hope that maybe one of us could come close to catching her.”
Hurd more than hopes to catch her. She has increased her difficulty over the last year in order to get as close as possible. This includes adding a tumbling pass on floor exercise, the Moors, that Biles is one of the only gymnasts in the world to do.
“I think there are only three people right now that do it, and it’s a very difficult skill,” said Hurd.
With added difficulty and big titles to Hurd’s name, this year’s national championships will be much different than last year’s — which isn’t such a bad thing. Last year, she struggled in her first nationals at the senior level, finishing sixth in the all-around. If the world championship team had been picked outright from just that meet, she probably wouldn’t have made it.
After that less than superb performance, Hurd fought back. She had the meet of her life at the World Selection Camp, outscoring her teammates and being named to the squad outright. Then at the worlds in Montreal, teammate and all-around favorite Ragan Smith injured her ankle in warmups. That opened the door for Hurd, who turned in another fabulous performance to win the title.
“I think it’s just crazy, because I didn’t even think I would even make the team, let alone place, let alone win,” said Hurd.
Since then, she’s won the American Cup, an annual spring international invitational. She placed third at July’s U.S. Classic, a qualifying meet for the championships, where she wasn’t showing her full difficulty.
She still runs a tad under the radar to Smith and Biles nationally, but definitely not at her training center in Delaware. Her face is now all over the outside and inside of the gym.
“You walk into the front doors and I’m on one of the front doors, which is weird,” she laughed.
When she’s not in that gym, Hurd is often found reading, and she’s not shy about it. Her social media accounts are full of mentions of books she is currently reading, books she wants to reread and her love of Harry Potter. In July, she competed at the U.S. Classic in a Harry Potterburgundy colored leotard.
Not many women’s elite gymnasts are so open about their passions outside of gymnastics, but Hurd breaks that mold.
“Ever since I was younger, I have loved reading,” said Hurd. “I thought it was the greatest thing. I got to make up the characters inside of my head. Now it is a way to get away from all of my stress. When I am reading, I completely forget about everything. Sometimes I look up from a book and almost forget where I am, which is really beneficial.”
She also tends to forget she’s world champion, which also can be beneficial as she prepares for this weekend.
“I don’t really think of myself as a world champion,” admits Hurd. “It slips my mind that I am, and I just go out there and do my best.”