In gymnastics, going first is no honor, but that is exactly what the Romanians will do when the Olympic women’s competition begins on Monday with the compulsories.
It is a nasty draw for a team that has won the last two world titles. Gymnastics scores have a nagging tendency to inflate as a day progresses. But in reality, the draw may be the least of the Romanian worries.
It’s not easy to get to the first place, but it’s even harder to stay in the first place," said Octavian Belu, the mustachioed and occasionally embattled coach who has held the Romanian team together in the wake of massive political change.
The Romanians have health worries: two stars recovering from injuries and a lesser light, Anamaria Bican, who suffered a knee injury on Saturday that will keep her out of the Olympics. They have technical worries: their performance in compulsories during today’s podium training was competent but hardly dazzling with the exception of the vault.
Above all, the Romanians have crowd worries, as the 22,373 people who paid to watch today’s dress rehearsal in the Georgia Dome made abundantly clear. There were smatterings of applause for the Romanians in the morning; smatterings more for Svetlana Boguinskaya and the Belarussians in the early afternoon and nothing but a roar when the seven American women who hope to become gold medalists filed into the arena.
Amanda Borden, the team captain, was visibly moved. Podium training is normally conducted before a handful of officials and bystanders, not before thousands of fans willing to pay for the privilege (tickets were $11 or $22 and most fans paid $22).
"I have to say that when I first walked out, I was going ‘Whoa,’ " Borden said. “I felt that the tears could have come if I would have let them.”
But Borden and company kept their composure and proceeded to perform a series of compulsories that were not flawless but certainly more polished and dynamic than the Romanians’ performances. The Chinese and Russians later would look strong in the day’s final session.
“We’ve definitely got our hands full, but we’ve got a great chance for a medal,” said Steve Nunno, Shannon Miller’s coach.
Miller, the national champion whose injured left wrist kept her out of the Olympic trials, was still not her sharpest despite declaring herself “pretty much pain-free.” She broke rhythm doing a pirouette on uneven bars, then botched her mount on beam. But the rest was solid, and barring some late-night haggling, it appears the American compulsory lineup is now set. Miller, Dominique Dawes, Jaycie Phelps, Kerri Strug and 14-year-old Dominique Moceanu, who looked good today, will perform in every event (and incidentally stay in contention for the all-around final). Amy Chow and Borden will be used where needed.
But though many of the cognoscenti gathered around the podium today were giving the early edge to the Americans, the Americans and everyone else still have to get past the Romanians.
They have been on top since 1994, when they won the world team championship in Germany. And with Lavinia Milosovici and Gina Gogean (both returning Olympians), Simona Amanar and 15-year-old Alexandra Marinescu, they have four gymnasts with established international reputations.
Both Milosovici and Gogean have had health problems recently. Milosovici sprained her right ankle last month and had to miss several days of training, which is a major break by Romanian standards. Gogean fell ill in June and had to have an appendectomy. She missed 12 days of practice, a sabbatical by Romanian standards.
But both performed quite respectably on the podium today. The only trace of their duress was the elastic support on Milosovici’s ankle. The missing Romanian was Bican, a 16-year-old who tore knee ligaments vaulting on Saturday. Her injury means the Romanian team will enter competition with six gymnasts instead of the seven their rivals will have available.
“We are in a difficult moment now without an alternate,” Belu said.
In truth, it is not a major blow. Only six gymnasts from a team can compete on each apparatus anyway (the top five scores count). But the injury does deprive Belu of a certain tactical flexibility. He had planned to use Bican, a former bronze medalist in the European junior championships, on compulsory beam and in three optional events.
Now he must hope that his other six gymnasts stay healthy and that the loud Georgia Dome crowd does not prove too influential. Belu remembers all too well what happened the last time he brought his team to the United States for a major meet. It was in 1991 for the world championships in Indianapolis. The Americans edged his team for the silver, and Belu still believes that suspect judging was the explanation.
“I had a bad experience,” he said. “But I think the American team is good enough now that they don’t need to use other methods to win.”
