Soviet Women Tie for All-Around Title

Soviet champion Oksana Omeliantchik and her teammate, European champion Elena Shoushounova, tied for the gold medal in the women’s all-around at the World gymnastics championships Saturday night.

It was the first time in International Federation of Gymnastics history that there had been a tie for the women’s all-around title. The Soviet Union, which skipped the 1984 Olympic Games, has swept the men’s and women’s team and all-around titles here.

Omeliantchik and Shoushounova finished with composite scores of 78.663 of a possible 80 points, never scoring lower than 9.850 in Saturday night’s rotation on the vault, the balance beam, the floor exercise and the uneven parallel bars.

East Germans Dagmar Kersten and Gabrielle Fahnrich were third and fourth with scores of 78.325 and 78.088, respectively. Romanian Ecaterina Szabo, winner of four golds and a silver at the Olympics and the leader going into Saturday’s finals, fell off the four-inch balance beam and finished fifth with a 78.075.

The top American was Sabrina Mar of Monterey, Calif., who was 14th with a 76.725.