HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Only 13, Jordyn Wieber showed she can hang with the big kids. And then some.

The reigning U.S. junior gymnastics champion made quite an impression in her first major meet Saturday, winning the American Cup and joining the likes of Nadia Comaneci, Mary Lou Retton and Nastia Liukin. She's the second-youngest champion in the 34-year-old event.

"I think it just puts her on everybody's list," said John Geddert, Wieber's coach. "We've got a long ways to go, but it's a good list to be on."

Germany's Fabian Hambuechen rebounded from his disappointing showing at the Beijing Olympics to win the men's title, edging American David Sender with a spectacular routine on high bar, the last event. Hambuechen finished with 90.650 points, 0.20 ahead of Sender. Joey Hagerty, part of the U.S. men's team that won the bronze medal at the Beijing Games, was third.

"It was just fun again," said Hambuechen, who said he was bogged down by his own expectations in Beijing. "I found my fun back in this competition."

Wieber is so young she won't even be eligible for the world championships until 2011. But national team coordinator Martha Karolyi wanted her to come to American Cup for experience and that all-important face-time with the international judges.

The judges will remember her, all right. She was first on everything but floor exercise, and was a close second there. Her overall score of 60.2 points was .60 ahead of Bridget Sloan, who is still working her way back into shape after helping the U.S. women win a silver medal at the Beijing Olympics.

"I had a lot of fun out there today," Wieber said. "I wasn't expecting too much. I just wanted to do good routines."

That she did.

Wieber packs plenty of power in her tiny frame, and she showed it off on the very first event. She already does the vault Shawn Johnson mastered for the Olympics, a trick so difficult only a handful of women in the world even try it. Her form wasn't perfect, and she had to take a big step to steady herself on her landing.

But the difficulty score gives her a huge advantage — her vault was worth seven-tenths of a point more than Sloan's — and put her in control.

"It's world-class, that's for sure," Geddert said. "I give her the choice to do it if it doesn't feel right or not, and she says, 'I'm going for it.' She wants to go for everything. She wants to do the hardest skills."

She's got more that she could do, too. While Geddert said any thoughts about upgrading her vault more were "brief," they will add skills to her uneven bars routine and her floor exercise. When they do, look out.

Wieber's power makes her tumbling runs on floor and acrobatic skills on balance beam look simple. Her final tumbling pass on floor was huge, getting so much air she probably could have thrown in another flip, yet she landed it like she had sticky tape on her feet. But she's got a grace and elegance, too, with perfectly pointed toes on uneven bars and a lightness when she does pirouettes on the balance beam.

And unlike most gymnasts her age, she's already got the knack for performing. Her floor routine is to a bluesy number, and she shimmied and shook to the delight of the crowd, which was clapping along with the music.

Her only real flaw of the day was a big wobble on a side somersault on the balance beam. She had to wave her arms to keep herself on the beam, but she managed it and came right back with an aerial back somersault that looked as easy as cartwheel.

"I just feel honored to be one of those people now," Wieber said when asked about winning the same competition as Comaneci, Retton and Liukin — all Olympic champions. "It's great to see they've won and what they've gone on to do in their careers. But I'm trying not to rush my thoughts too much. I still have four years until the Olympics."

Sloan was quite happy with her second-place finish. She should be, considering she's only been doing full routines since January.

Like her fellow Olympians, she was just a little busy in the fall, hanging out with Oprah, visiting the White House, doing an appearance with Peyton Manning. You know, the normal things for a 16-year-old. This meet was a starting point, and Sloan promised there will be much more to see in the coming months.

"This is just the beginning for 2009," she said. "There's a lot more to me."

After winning the silver medal in the all-around at the 2007 world championships, Hambuechen was considered a multi-medal threat for Beijing. But he left with just one, a bronze on high bar, and says now that he worried too much about placement and not enough about having fun.

No more.

Still recovering from surgery in December to repair a torn tendon in his pinky finger, Hambuechen trailed Sender for most of the meet. But Hambuechen was the final competitor on high bar, his signature event, and he put on quite a finale.

He packs his routines with an ooh-and-aah mix of flips, twists and pirouettes. He did three release moves, launching himself high above the bar and coming down to catch it as if he was merely grabbing something from a shelf. He took a slight hop on the landing, but it hardly mattered.

"It was just fun on high bar, really exciting to me," Hambuechen said.

It was his first victory at the American Cup. He had to withdraw last year because of the flu.

"I didn't think about winning the American Cup because it's really hard to win in the United States," he said. "Now, I'm so happy."