The United States secured two gold medals on the opening day of the Pacific Rim Championship ©Pacific Rim Championship

Hosts the United States enjoyed a successful opening day at the Pacific Rim Championships as they claimed men’s team and women’s trampoline gold at the Xfinity Arena in Washington.

The men’s artistic team, featuring Jake Dalton, Sam Mikulak, Alex Naddour, John Orozco, Eddie Penev and Donnell Whittenburg, weren’t at their best but managed to top the podium with a score of 355.950.

China’s Jile Mu, Weifeng Cai, Baisen Gu, Peng Wang and Jingyuan Zou were forced to settle for silver after recording 347.400 points, while Canada rounded off the podium with bronze as the team of Aaron Mah, Justin Karstadt, Scott Nabata, Damien Cachia, Joel Gagnon and Anthony Tawfik scored 333.200.

“The goal was to come out and win the team so thankfully we accomplished that,” Mikulak, individual all-around gold medallist at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto, said.

“We would have liked to do it with a little more pizzazz.

“But the biggest takeaway that you can get from this competition is even though we had a lot of mistakes, we never looked back.

“We never defeated ourselves.

“We just looked to the next event, kept a very upbeat vibe.”

The hosts also struck gold in the women's team trampoline final
The hosts also struck gold in the women's team trampoline final ©Pacific Rim Championships

Charlotte Drury, Shaylee Dunavin, Jessica Stevens and Alyssa Oh added to the American success, winning the women’s team trampoline crown with an overall total of 292.085.

The Japanese quartet of Chiho Matsubara, Moeri Handa, Yumi Takagi and Oka Sugitani finished second on 290.741, comfortably ahead of the Canadian team, comprised of Samantha Sendel, Samantha Smith and Kalena Soehn, who amassed 286.810.

Despite missing out on the team title, Weifeng ensured the Chinese team didn’t finish empty handed as he pipped home hope Whittenburg, bronze medallist in the vault at last year’s Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, to gold in the men’s individual all-around event.

Weifeng was particularly impressive on the tricky parallel bars, where a total of 15.550 helped him to an overall 87.450.

His score was just 0.250 more than the American, while Mikulak picked up bronze on 87.200.

The US women’s rhythmic team are well placed at the top of the leaderboard at the halfway stage on 131.215, in front of Canada and China.

Aliya Protto is the one to beat in the individual competition on 34.266, ahead of team-mates Camilla Feeley and Brigita Budginas.

Action in Washington continues tomorrow.