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No medal for U.S. women This time, it's the Romanians who are magnificentPosted: Tuesday September 19, 2000 12:00 AMUpdated: Monday November 13, 2000 2:53 PM
SYDNEY, Australia (CNNSI.com) -- The United States finally showed the fire Bela Karolyi wanted so badly, but the team just didn't have the tricks it needed to get on the medals podium Tuesday night. The defending gold medalists finished fourth in the women's team final competition. World champion Romania won its second gold medal, clinching it easily with 154.608 points. Russia won the silver and China took the bronze. Still, for a U.S. team that finished a humiliating sixth at last fall's world championships and then showed all the emotion and skill of a YMCA tumbling class in Sunday's preliminaries, this was progress. "I believe they started catching up," said Karolyi, who again watched the competition from the press seats. "They started building the confidence that's so much needed in the competition. They started getting united as a team, looking like a team and working like a team. "That's very, very important. And that's probably the biggest success of the night." But Karolyi can't take all the credit for this one. With his bear hugs and unique way with words, the coach who led Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton to gold has often been criticized for being manipulative and hogging the spotlight. It was no different Tuesday night.
"He takes the credit when we do good, and blames everyone else when we do bad," said Jamie Dantzscher, who was ripped by Karolyi after the preliminaries. "It's so not fair." While Karolyi tried to coach through osmosis or ESP or something from the stands, fidgeting and muttering through the competition, he wasn't the difference, said Elise Ray, the national champion. "It's a two-way street," she said. "He had a huge part to do with it. Coming out of retirement, that was important to us. But it wouldn't have happened without our desire to succeed." The Romanians had an even bigger desire to succeed. They'd never beaten the Russians in an Olympic competition, finishing second to them so many times they were staring to get an inferiority complex. Their only gold medal came in 1984, when most of the Eastern bloc boycotted the games. "It's very nice to win," said Maria Bitang, the assistant Romanian coach. "The Russians had a lot of pressure, and they made many mistakes." The Romanians, on the other hand, were nearly perfect Tuesday. The team is so deep - from 1996 Olympian Simona Amanar to world champion Maria Olaru to tiny Andreea Raducan, the newest Romanian darling -- and they don't make mistakes. Or at least not many. They built a solid lead and then had to wait out the last two rotations until the Chinese and Russians finished. It was probably the most enjoyable wait they've ever had. With the pressure on, the Russians and Chinese stumbled. Svetlana Khorkina, the defending world and Olympic champ on bars, fell off, a slip so ghastly it drew a gasp from the crowd. And how"s this for bad karma? The Russians finished up on the floor, the same spot they occupied when they lost the gold to the Americans in 1996. Back then, janitors could have used a squeegee to sop up Khorkina, who dissolved in tears as she watched Kerri Strug do her famous vault.
Khorkina had the waterworks going again Tuesday night as she watched teammate Anna Tchepeleva step out of bounds for a less-than-rousing start. By the time Khorkina took the floor, she needed a 9.992 for the Russians to win. She didn't get it, earning a 9.787, sending the Romanians into a frenzy of cheers and hugs. The U.S. women, meanwhile, politely clapped and filed out of the arena. "We did so good today," Dantzscher said. "We did our best and that's all we can ask for." This is the first time since 1988 that the American women have failed to medal in the team competition. But after being left for dead last fall - their second last-place finish in the medals round at worlds - they're not complaining. "The girls did what they could," coach Kelli Hill said. "We had nowhere to go but up. So we decided to have some fun." So lifeless during the preliminaries Sunday, the Americans looked like they got personality transplants in the last few days. Either that or a good tongue-lashing from Karolyi. "Don't ask me," Karolyi said. "You won't write it down." Whatever it was, it worked. They huddled after each event, breaking with a chant of "U-S-A!" They screamed and cheered each other on. National champ Elise Ray was the head cheerleader, waving a tiny American flag at the fans as the team went to the floor exercise, its last rotation. She was a bundle of energy the rest of the night, too. Gripping the Cookie Monster good-luck charm she shares with Dominique Dawes so hard its little eyes bugged out even further, Ray paced like Karolyi does when he"s on the floor. When Dantzscher finished her elegant, high-flying bars routine, sticking her landing so hard it sent her ponytailing bobbing up and down, Ray greeted her with "Whoa, baby!" as she came off the podium. The Americans" spirit on the floor was as impressive as their exuberance off of it. During the preliminaries, they had looked wooden on the floor exercise, showing no expression whatsoever. On Tuesday night, they pranced. They played. They even flirted. Midway through her routine, Dantzscher raised her eyebrows at the judges and gave a look that bordered on sexy. When she finished, she pointed her finger at the panel playfully. The new, improved Americans were a big hit with the judges. Dantzscher scored a 9.712. Strutting through a jazzy version of "Putting on the Ritz," Kristen Maloney earned a 9.737. "Attitude. It was attitude," Karolyi said. "There was no technical difference between the first and second night. There were some better preformances, obviously, but attitude was the difference." The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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