Next to Khorkina, who was favored for a gold medal, the most visible victim of the vault foul-up may have been American Elise Ray, who fell on her back in her warm-up and then twice more in competition, earning a deplorable 7.618 for the event. Britain’s Annika Reeder was taken off the floor in a wheelchair after injuring her ankle in a fall and withdrew from competition. As dismay and bewilderment spread over the faces of the watching athletes, no one seemed to consider the possibility of an equipment problem until a question was raised by Australian gymnast Allana Slater. The 18 women in the first two rotations were given a chance to redo their routines, but only five took up the offer– not including the thoroughly disgusted Khorkina, whose score by then was beyond repair. (Nor did the eventual winner, Romanian Andreea Raducan, who nailed her routine with a solid 9.7; it appeared that the taller athletes–like 5-foot-5 Khorkina–found it harder to compensate for the mistake than Raducan, who is only 4 feet 10.) “I’ve never seen this before, and I never want to see it happen again,” said an in-credulous U.S. coach Kelli Hill. To the surprise of many viewers, Olympics officials offered no formal apology and apparently never considered stopping and rescheduling the event. “You know, stuff happens all the time,” USA Gymnastics president Bob Colarossi told USA Today, adding that there would be no formal protest by the Americans. “The Olympics aren’t about protests,” he said.
The debacle in the all-around event followed the Americans’ disappointment in the team competition. Not even the presence of Karolyi himself, as “national team coordinator,” could transcend the limits of this women’s team. In the qualifying round the American women, looking glazed and glum, had stumbled on the mats and tumbled off apparatus–and just barely qualified, in the last of six places, for the team final. Karolyi watched from the stands, fuming, then afterward railed against the effort. “No fire, no ignition. No nothing,” said the legendary coach. “My God, this is the Olympics!”
But two nights later–after some choice words from Karolyi that, though fit for the ears of young women, are unsuitable for publication–a different team showed up. The routines went off smoothly, and by the evening’s last rotation they were smiling, cheering and exchanging hugs. The problem remained that they simply weren’t as good as Romania, Russia and China. Still, the team seemed genuinely thrilled with the redemptive effort that landed them fourth. “The girls are really happy, and they should be,” said Hill. “It’s pretty good, considering where they were. We had nowhere to go but up.”
Just four years after U.S. women’s gymnastics triumphed in Atlanta, there is plenty of reason to question whether the team is indeed headed up or into free fall. While the Atlanta team appeared in sync on and off the floor, the Sydney ensemble could be the most fractious family in American sports. Not even the palpable relief of a respectable showing could cloak the deep divisions between coaches, or the fury of some athletes over Karolyi’s autocratic approach. Jamie Dantzscher, who had been singled out by Bela for criticism after the first night, fired back: “Everything I’ve done to get here didn’t matter. He didn’t know how to treat me as a person.”
Karolyi had retired from individual coaching after 1996, but when the American team flopped to sixth place at last year’s world championships in China, USA Gymnastics lured him back in a supervisory position. “We were a team going in 10 different directions,” Colarossi said. Karolyi instituted a succession of rigorous training camps, trying to instill his gymnastic values in a few dozen Olympic aspirants. “This generation of gymnasts has not the backbone, not the work ethic, not the strong goal-setting attitude of the one in Atlanta,” said Karolyi. “They started to come out of their shell with the attitude I’ve been preaching. But you can’t work miracles in one night.”
However, the individual coaches of all these gymnasts didn’t see a miracle in progress, but rather a coup. They resented how Karolyi rode roughshod over their prescribed regimens and fretted that with his old-school (old Romanian school, to be precise) approach, he pushed the kids too hard. Mary Lee Tracy, who was co-coach of the Atlanta gold-medal team, didn’t hide her belief that Karolyi’s demanding workouts may have led to a stress fracture that forced Morgan White off the team for Sydney. Karolyi, whose Belanese riffs on the English language can be unfathomable, was clear about the benefits of a more uniform training approach and a more homogenized national style, as in champion Romania. “It’s going to take some time, but we’re much better off than a year ago,” he insisted. Just a few feet away, team coach Hill was saying she saw little value in Karolyi’s camps. And she dismissed Bela’s one-team, one-style vision as “not American.” “We’ve succeeded our way before,” she said. “Now we’re building back up. And we’ll do it again.”
America’s men gymnasts were having their struggles too. Considered a medal contender, the team finished fifth, in part because of two subpar performances by five-time U.S. champion Blaine Wilson. The punk-styled star of the team rebounded in the individual all-around, but still finished five places behind gold medalist Alexei Nemov of Russia. Asked if he felt somewhat vindicated by the strong effort, the temperamental Wilson bristled: “I walked into this gym having done more for U.S. gymnastics the last four years than anyone out there. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.”
The men at least were spared the insult–or deprived of the excuse–of performing on flawed equipment. Not so for Ray, who took the opportunity to redo her vault–and although her score improved dramatically, she still finished a disappointing 14th overall. “I was feeling down on myself” after the botched vault, she said. “I had a feeling to just give up, but I tried to push through that and finish as best I could.” Miracles are often made of that kind of determination. But not this year.
