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Friday, August 20

America's young gymnasts show poise

ATHENS, Greece - America once thought poise was the province of grown-ups. Only folks 21 and older had the requisite smarts, experience and, yeah, the courage, to handle life's pivotal moments.

Kids? They say the darndest things. But they're - well, they're kids.

Half the world watched a kid rock Thursday night at the Olympic Indoor Hall. They saw Carly Patterson win an Olympic gold medal in gymnastics by taking on an old pro, Russia's icy Svetlana Khorkina, and blowing past her like a F-16 passing a DC-3.

Patterson is 16 years old. She wasn't even born when Mary Lou Retton won the last individual all-around medal by a U.S. woman gymnast, in 1984.

The teenager from Baton Rouge, La., put together two goose bump-inducing performances - on the balance beam and in floor exercises - that took down the 25-year-old Khorkina, and at the same time, signaled what may be a powerhouse future for U.S. gymnasts.

Patterson: a gold medal in the women's all-around event.

Paul Hamm: a gold medal in the men's all-around.

The U.S. men's and women's squads took home silver medals this week in the team competition.

Dynasty was always a word connected with the old New York Yankees. Now it may apply to a different group of Yanks - the U.S. gymnastics teams.

Bela Karolyi, the great Romanian coach who left for America years ago and whose wife, Martha, is coordinator of the U.S. women's gymnasts, stood regally Thursday night in the tunnel of Olympic Indoor Hall. Karolyi is a majestic presence with his platinum hair and mustache, and with his boom-box voice that suggests a Romanian-tinged version of Lorne Greene.

Theatrically - there is no other way Karolyi acts or speaks - he talked after Patterson's triumph about the U.S. gymnasts and what may be over the horizon.

"Now people can see the system is strong, steady," Karolyi bellowed. "We have created not only a champion (Patterson), but there is a humongous army behind us."

He wasn't talking Pentagon matters there.

Patterson is a prime example of what the U.S. is hatching in training centers across America. Expect the number to rise. Tomorrow, Karolyi rumbled, millions of girls will say, "I want to be the next Carly Patterson!'

Girls with a gift for the super-skilled athleticism demanded of gymnastics - not to mention with an appetite for 10-year training regimens - can always get the coaching, as long as mom and dad have patience, an equal willingness to sacrifice, and checkbooks that can withstand Hurricane Carly, the latest storm to have hit American households that were tuned into Thursday night's cinematics.

Patterson was, in fact, spectacular. But it was more than talent that helped her topple Khorkina, not to mention China's Nan Zhang, Romania's Nicoleta Sofronie, etc.

Had she not been groomed by Martha Karolyi, and by her personal coach, Evgeny Marchenko, she could never have taken Khorkina to the cleaners in those two final events.

On the balance beam, Patterson scored 9.725, compared with Khorkina's 9.462 - a huge differential that spoke almost exclusively to Patterson's artistry.

The stream of exclusive moves, the brilliance of her repertoire, enabled Patterson to perform a cut above the competition. The dismount that essentially sealed her gold medal is known as an Arabian double-front.

Indeed, Patterson is the only person in the world to have completed a roundoff, back-handspring Arabian double-front, which refers to the fact she never sees the beam as she departs nor sees her landing strip until the acrobatics have been completed.

Uh, don't try it at home.

Even the men are getting in on this U.S. gymnastics craze.

They hadn't won a medal at a nonboycotted Olympics since 1932, but nailed two of them this week. Never mind that colleges have been chopping down gymnastics programs like old-growth timber as budgets have been squeezed.

The men are bent on heading in the same direction as the U.S. women: skyward.

"Now that we've won the silver medal (team competition)," said Kevin Mazeika, the U.S. men's coach, "I see that this Olympics has a chance to create a tremendous new fan base."

This was before Hamm pulled off a James Bond-style finish Wednesday night that won a gold medal in the men's all-around competition.

Much of the U.S. men's teams battle is to gain fan parity with the women.

Television audiences, magazine covers, endorsements - they are commandeered by the women gymnasts and their fans.

Just don't suggest to U.S. men's team members that there's a box-office gap between the two groups.

"I take offense at that (statement)," said Guard Young, who was part of this week's silver-medal gang. "When you come to Europe, the men's gymnasts, they're superstars.

"I coach at the University of Oklahoma. And we out-attend the women at our men's matches."

More out-attending at more sites nationwide would be helpful there. But the men got an enormous boost this week from, even more than their silver rush, Hamm's riveting gold-medal mission Wednesday.

Hamm, by the way, made a recent list of People magazine's 50-most eligible bachelors. It's safe to say a gold medal won't reduce his, or his sports, stock on the sex-appeal exchange.

Review the past four days in Athens and you come to a fast conclusion: The only people who benefited as much as U.S. gymnastics programs from this week's Hollywood scripts was NBC, which can feel better about spending half the gross national product in securing Olympics television rights.

They also have dibs on getting Patterson to themselves on Friday morning's "Today'' show.

Count on a lot of little girls and their moms getting up early for that appearance.

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