【Shawn Johnson】★ Shawn Johnson posts mixed performance

At this point in Johnson's comeback, accomplishments are being measured more by skills than by scores. To protect the ACL she tore last year and not lose time to another serious injury, Johnson and longtime coach Liang Chow have been extremely cautious about adding back the exceptional difficulty that made Johnson's routines stand out in Beijing. That's why Johnson has not yet competed in the floor routine, though she does intend to do the event next year. She is also attempting to regain the Amanar vault (two and half twists off the vault table) that gave her a big edge in difficulty in Beijing. "That's one of those staples for an all-arounder," she said. "I've been working on it here and there."
For the Pan American Games, Johnson did add in one of the tricks that made her famous in 2008: a standing back tuck with a full twist on beam. But she fell on the skill during the team final, then lost focus later in the routine and came off again on a simple switch leap.
The former Olympic beam champion still has big potential in the event, though. She scored a very low 12.875, but each fall is a 1.0 deduction. Add in the points lost for the falls and other missed connections from them, and her score would be competitive with some of the top beam workers at the world championships earlier this month.

Chow does not see Johnson's mistakes at the Pan American Games as detrimental to her Olympic campaign.
"I don't think Martha [Karolyi] or the selection committee is going to make a decision based on one meet," he said. "We have come a long way to this point. Our goal was competing at one of the major international meets this year. We achieved our goal for this year. But I'm not saying next year will be easy -- we have a lot of work ahead of us."