Stumbles cost U.S. women gold in gymnastics

By JEFF METCALFE

The Arizona Republic

ATHENS, Greece — There was room for one error — maybe two — in the Olympic women’s gymnastics final, but not three.

Especially not against Romania, which claimed its third gold since 1976 at the United States’ expense on Tuesday, in a format where all 12 performances counted.

The Romanian women put down the hammer on floor exercise, their final rotation. Their cumulative 28.749 was the highest event score of the night at Olympic Indoor Hall, increasing a margin of .124 to .699.

American Carly Patterson, top overall all-around during preliminaries, gave up at least .5 on her first two events.

She rushed her vault and landed bent at the waist for a 9.325. Then she over-rotated her first turn on uneven parallel bars, affecting the entire routine and scoring a 9.287.

"I think Carly gave 100 percent the first day, and it looks like she wasn’t able to pump herself as much up at the beginning of today’s competition," U.S. team director Marta Karolyi said. "Those are very uncharacteristic mistakes for her. She is more than capable of doing better at those two routines."

Patterson rebounded for a 9.612 on balance beam and a 9.662 on floor, but the unraveling of the U.S. women’s team continued because of a hamstring/abductor injury that has hampered Courtney Kupets for a few weeks.

Kupets asked to be taken off beam so she would be ready for floor. Mohini Bhardwaj took her place, scoring a respectable 9.40. Then on floor, Kupets failed to make a connection on a double turn and lost a jump. Her 9.187 was more than .20 lower than in prelims, and Bhardwaj dropped .20 from her qualifying floor score.

Karolyi, though, did not second-guess her decision to put two vault specialists (Bhardwaj and Annia Hatch) on a six-member team or to leave Courtney McCool, shaky in prelims, out of the finals.

"I don’t know anybody else who was stronger," Karolyi said. "The next person would be Chellsie Memmel, who didn’t have her floor routine back after her injury, or Hollie Vise, who didn’t have enough start value. This was the team I would pick. I’m feeling very comfortable with the choice we had."

The Americans led by .338 after two rotations because Romanians Oana Ban (9.187) and Monica Rosu (9.387) had trouble on bars, and it seemed then that the 2003 world champions might overcome Patterson’s errors.

But the United States was third overall behind Romania and bronze medalist Russia on beam and floor, and the Romanians outscored the United States on vault.

"We definitely wanted to raise the level of U.S. gymnastics, and I’m positive to make the statement we did," Karolyi said. "Certainly we had little problems to deal with, but we’re still happy with the result."

Team USA failed to win a medal four years ago, and Patterson will be a viable all-around contender Thursday. The U.S. women also won silver in 1984 before Mary Lou Retton won the all-around.

"You’re not going to let a little pain stop you," Kupets said of opting to compete on floor. "We did our best. It’s not bad to have a silver medal at the Olympics."