SYDNEY 2000: GYMNASTICS; A Champion Answers Disaster With Triumph (original) (raw)
Sports|SYDNEY 2000: GYMNASTICS; A Champion Answers Disaster With Triumph
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SYDNEY 2000: GYMNASTICS
- Sept. 25, 2000
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September 25, 2000
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Section S, Page
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The dramatic pause before the final score was posted lasted long enough for Svetlana Khorkina to launch into a plea-bargaining session with her demons.
She clamped her eyes shut, clenched her fists as tight as paper wads and whispered under her breath: please, no more heartbreak. An instant later, as the impressive Ling Jie's score of 9.837 glowed on the overhead screen, Khorkina's naturally sullen exterior melted away.
Joy moved in. With tiny puddles in her eyes, the willowy Russian floated over to the uneven bars and kissed them like an old friend. By the smallest of margins, by the minuscule hop on Ling's dismount, Khorkina's 9.862 in her signature event was enough to give her a gold medal in today's Olympic apparatus finals at the Super Dome. It also provided her with an ounce of redemption after an error by the technical staff ruined her chance at the prestigious all-around title last Thursday.
That night, after springing into her vault, and abruptly crashing like a bird flying into a windowpane, the diva of gymnastics was too emotionally distraught to hit her next routine, the uneven bars. One event later, she was told the vault block had been mistakenly set two inches below standard height. In an array of reactions, Khorkina cried, screamed and eventually exited the arena in a huff.
''If I didn't get over the disappointment, I wouldn't be Khorkina,'' she said through an interpreter today. ''I wouldn't be standing here with the gold medal.
''It still hurts a lot. It was cruel to all the participants, to vault on a nonstandard height. It's quite possible to get killed. The five centimeters could decide the future of a sports person. But I was fortunate to have many people to help me get through it.''
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