By Rick Malwitz
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – The mayor and borough council will honor Olympian Steven Gluckstein during its Aug. 15 meeting.
The borough resident will receive a key to the borough and a special proclamation from Mayor Frederick J. Rast III and council at the 7 p.m. Wednesday session of the council.
Gluckstein left his competition at the London Olympics thirsting for more following a flawed performance on the trampoline.
“I’m angry and hungry for redemption! I hope this feeling stays for another 4 years, there will be NO stopping me,’’ he told followers on his Twitter account.
The competition, held Friday Aug. 3, included two routines and, following the compulsory routine, Gluckstein was in 12th place. To reach the finals he would have had to finish in the top eight.
But during his second routine he faltered while performing what he described as a “triple half-pike with a half-twist.” He failed to complete the routine and was immediately eliminated from the competition.
“My first routine went well and in training, that’s the routine I’ve been worried about a little bit and it went well so I felt calm,” he said at a press conference following the event.
“In my second routine, I was telling myself to go big, it’s the Olympics. If you’re going to go big, this is the time. So I did. I had a nice first skill opening, landed a little short and tried to correct it and I just overcorrected it.’’
The routine had required him to do 10 jumps in 12 seconds. His fall dropped him to 16th in the scoring.
Still, despite the disappointment he left London with an experience he will not soon forget.
“I don’t know if it’s about the stadium, the crowd, the USA on my chest, something about it was much different from any competition I’ve ever competed in before,” he said. “I hear people talk about the Olympic spirit, and I was curious as to what it felt like, and I think I felt it tonight.”
Beyond competition he was living the dream, mingling with the best athletes in the world at the quadrennial games. “This is athletes’ heaven, hard to go back to reality but a man’s got responsibilities,” he told his Twitter followers.
Gluckstein earned the trip to the Summer Olympics when he won the U.S. Gymnastics Trampoline trials in San Jose in June. It completed a 4-year mission to make the team. His brother Jeffrey Gluckstein finished third in the national event.
The brothers plan to seek a spot on the Olympics team for the 2016 games.
