U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : ROUNDUP : Rubenshtein Wins a Second Straight Bronze Medal in Rhythmic Gymnastics

For the absolutely last and final time, the answer is no.

No, Irina Rubenshtein does not think of herself as a Soviet citizen.

No, she did not get her start in gymnastics in the Soviet Union.

No, she would not see a victory over a Soviet gymnast as personal vindication.

She would see it as a personal triumph. Plain and simple.

In other words, please, one and all, get off the Soviet kick.

“I don’t understand why reporters are so interested in my having been born in the Soviet Union,” Rubenshtein said Thursday after winning a bronze medal at the Raleigh, N.C., Civic Center in the all-around finals of the rhythmic gymnastics at the U.S. Olympic Festival. “I never even knew what the word ‘gymnastics’ meant while I was there.”

Certainly understandable. Rubenshtein was only 6 when she and her family left their homeland.

That was in 1976. It was one of those rare moments when the constantly fluctuating Soviet policy favored the emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel.

The gates don’t swing open very often, so Bernard Rubenshtein, a Jewish engineer, decided to take advantage although he had no desire to take his wife, Larisa, daughter, Irina, and son, Gennady, to Israel.

Of course, he didn’t tell the Soviet government that. He filed papers for permission to go to Israel, went through Austria and on to Italy where the Rubenshteins refiled for their true destination--America.

They went first to Minneapolis.

“My father thought,” Irina said, “it would be a nice, calm place to start life in this country.”

After nearly four years, the Rubenshteins moved to Agoura where they are still living.

There, Irina began her present life as a gymnast.

Pushing herself four to five hours a day, six to seven days a week, the 17-year-old Agoura High student has been a member of the senior national gymnastics team for the past three years, was eighth all-around in rhythmic gymnastics at the 1985 Festival, and third last year.

She trains at the Los Angeles School of Gymnastics under Coach Alla Svirsky, a former Soviet national gymnastics champion.

So what is left for Rubenshtein, the 1988 Olympics? She doesn’t think so.

“I was third today,” she said, “and I just don’t think I can get in the top two. They are just better than me.”

“They” refers to Marina Kunyavski of Culver City, another Soviet immigrant who won the gold medal Thursday with a Festival record all-around point total of 77.40, and silver-medal winner Diane Simpson (76.85) of Evanston, Ill.

Simpson held the Festival record of 76.25, but even by breaking it Thursday, she still had to settle for second behind Kunyavski.

Rubenshtein finished with 75.35 points.

Alexandra Feldman of Sherman Oaks, another immigrant from the Soviet Union, finished sixth with 74.55 points.

Only this country’s top two rhythmic gymnasts will go to Seoul for the ’88 Games.

Rubenshtein is instead setting her sights on the 1989 Maccabiah Games in Israel.

“I think that will mark the ending of gymnastics for me,” she said. “I would still be young enough to compete, but I want to go to college and become an engineer, have a family, have a life.”

And not have pesty reporters around anymore, asking her about you know what.

FIELD HOCKEY

Mohammed Barakat of Moorpark scored both goals for the West men’s field hockey team at the University of North Carolina to give his squad a 2-1 victory over the North and a spot in tonight’s gold medal game against the South. Barakat’s first goal was unassisted. He dribbled in and put the ball in the right side of the net at the start of the second half.

The game was tied at the end of regulation, but Barakat, team co-captain, won it with eight seconds remaining in the first overtime on a penalty corner, getting the ball past North goalie Chris Delos Reyes.

“It is a very deceptive play,” Barakat said. “We decided to use the drag-then-fire when the game went into overtime.”

The West is 3-1, the North 1-3.

In the other semifinal game, the South stopped the East, 1-0, thanks in part to five saves by goalie John Spencer of Moorpark.

Attacker Gurdeep Kooner got the only score with 14 minutes to play, a 13-yard field goal on a long corner situation.

The South will enter the gold-medal game 2-1-1. The East dropped to 1-2-1.

HANDBALL

Again Renee Brum of Camarillo had a big day.

Again her team did not.

Brum scored four goals in team handball in the Carmichael Gymnasium on the campus of North Carolina State in Raleigh, but it wasn’t enough to prevent her West team from losing to the North, 23-19.

Brum has scored nine goals in three games, but the West has lost two of the three. The North is 3-0.

Teammate Kelli Johnson of No. Hollywood added another goal for the West. Another Valley area team handball player, Jeff Fruin of Calabasas, also scored four goals for his West team Thursday, but, in this case, the end product was a victory as the West men defeated the South, 24-18, to even both teams’ records at 1-1.

Brad Dow of Mill Valley led the West with eight goals.

Kevin Withrow of Thousand Oaks also had a score.