Romania Sweeps Women's Gymnastics All-Around
S Y D N E Y, Australia, Sept. 21, 2000 -- With bright eyes and a captivatingsmile reminiscent of another Romanian darling, tiny Andreea Raducancaptured the women’s gymnastics all-around gold medal today —and the fans’ hearts, too.
Only 4-foot-10 and nine days shy of her 17th birthday, Raducaneasily won with 38.893 points, the first Romanian to take theall-around gold since Nadia Comaneci in 1976.
As if that wasn’t triumph enough for the Romanian team, whichalso won the team gold, Simona Amanar and Maria Olaru took thesilver and the bronze medals. It’s the first time a country hasswept the all-around since the former Soviet Union did it in 1960.
Standing Tall
When Raducan finished her floor exercise, her last routine, theRomanian team began a raucous celebration. Amanar and Olaruexchanged hugs with their coaches, while team coach Octavian Belugrabbed Raducan and put her on his shoulders.
She stood tall, waving to the crowd and blowing kisses, a widesmile on her face, as the crowd cheered.
It didn’t even matter that she had to wait another 15 minutesfor the results to become official as five gymnasts — includingAmerican Elise Ray — repeated their vaults. The vault was set toolow in the first two rotations, and gymnasts were given the optionof doing their vaults over.
Americans Shut Out
The Americans, so lively and chipper during the team finalsTuesday, were back to being their boring, bad selves. Ray finished14th, Amy Chow was 15th and Kristen Maloney was 20th.
Ray got into trouble at the start of the night, stumbling on thelanding of her first vault and landing flat on her backside on thesecond. She scored a 7.816, one of the lowest scores in the entiremeet, but was allowed to do her vaults over.
She scored a 9.487, not enough to push her back into contention.
The national champion also had other mistakes, falling off thebeam and stepping out of bounds on floor. She has one last chanceat a medal in the event finals — and one more chance to keep theU.S. women from being shut out of the medals only four years afterwinning the all-around gold.
Chow wobbled on the balance beam and then stumbled backward onthe dismount of her beam routine. On the floor, she took a stepback on her first tumbling pass. Later, she flew out of bounds.
Maloney stumbled on the beam and had little mistakes in herother routines.
Khorkina Falters
If it gives the Americans comfort, it wasn’t exactly a prettynight for everyone else either. Svetlana Khorkina, the favoritegoing into the event, faltered badly and had the tears flowing longbefore she finished the night in 11th place.
She botched her first vault, not getting enough height andlanding on her knees. She scored only a 9.343, and she was wellaware that she’d just cost herself the gold. When a coach reachedout to comfort her as she got off the podium, she angrily pulledher arm away and stomped off.
It only got worse. Up next on uneven bars, where she’s thereigning Olympic, world and European champion, Khorkina threwherself off the bar, somersaulted over it and then plummeted to theground when the tips of her fingers grazed the bar but couldn’tcatch it.
The crowd gasped as she slammed into the mat. Khorkina slowlygot up and finished her routine, trying to hold back tears as shesat down.
Grabbed the Opportunity
That opened the door for Raducan. The 82-pound gymnast lookslike Comaneci, and she’s got the same steely nerves. As she gotready to take the floor, a horde of television cameras followed herevery move.
More fragile people might have cracked, but Raducan turned onher smile and wowed the judges. Performing to “Riverdance,”Raducan kicked up her heels, prancing across the floor with a bigsmile on her face.
She looked almost like Peter Pan as she tumbled, flying acrossthe floor with ease. When she finished, she grinned and ran toBelu, who swept her into his arms in triumph.