Men’s Gym Trials Aren’t Predictable, Just Poignant

The U.S. Olympic men’s gymnastics trials, which should have been a workmanlike affair, became a mess of emotion Friday night.

The big moment? It wasn’t the closing ceremony when the six Olympic team members were anointed, although that, too, had its strange poignancy.

How about halfway through the optionals meet when Tim Daggett, facing up to a reality he had never before acknowledged, began putting on his warmups. The Salt Palace spectators recognized the unannounced drama, and they arose in a wave, delivered the night’s biggest, and most chilling, ovation.

The 1984 Olympian, coming back from a catastrophic leg injury of nine months ago, had finally given up the dream that sustained his effort. He could not make the team, would no longer try, although by the way his teammates interrupted their own big moment to salute him, you had to think his accomplishment was already great enough.

The gymnastics themselves would produce even more pathos when Dan Hayden, the national champion, separated his shoulder on the parallel bars and then, nursing it through the final horizontal bar routine, flew off the bar twice and drop right into eighth place, out of the Olympics.

Which was the more pitiful sight at night’s end? Daggett facing the Olympic lineup from the left, or Hayden, holding his small bouquet of roses, facing it from the right?

For some, this was a three-hanky affair. Scott Johnson, now the only 1984 holdover, found himself dabbing his eyes when Daggett withdrew.

But there were other kinds of moments, too. Charles Lakes, who is intent on confounding the gymnastics community with his unorthodoxy of spirit and style, took the fans out of their seats late in the evening when he delivered a soaring high-bar routine for a 9.95 score. Lakes, who won the trials with a combined score of 116.60, later explained that he’d rather get a standing O than a 10.

“I don’t consider myself an athlete,” he explained. “I’m an artist.”

There was drama throughout the developing lineup. Johnson, the sixth man on the gold-medal team from 1984, came back from recent hand surgery to place second (115.80, the score reflecting the national championships as well) and make the team.

Another Nebraska native, Kevin Davis, came in third (115.290), edging Cornhusker teammate Wes Suter (114.970). Lance Ringnald, a lad who will enter Nebraska next fall, finished fifth (114.910). Dominick Minicucci was the last team member (114.650), edging Nebraska’s Tom Schlesinger, who will be the alternate.

Johnson, caretaker of the Olympic spirit, could hardly rejoice, because of Daggett’s withdrawal and retirement. “It brought tears to my eyes,” he said. “It hurt very bad. But we start a new era. For some it starts here, for us it ends here.”

Daggett’s mission, by most reckoning, was impossible. His right thigh and left leg are a map of scar tissue from surgery to repair his badly shattered left leg.

Almost worse than the physical injury, was his performance anxiety. He had collapsed the bone coming off a vault, and the landing would haunt his dreams for months. Yet he came back and surprised everybody with a world-class vault in Wednesday’s compulsories.

“Can you believe that vault,” said 1984 teammate Bart Connor over and over again.

Still, Daggett had not overcome the injury, either physically or mentally. He was very tense about his floor routine and finally reduced a one-and-a-half somersault on his opening pass to a single somersault, although still difficult.

He told fellow teammate Peter Vidmar that he wanted to make the team, but he didn’t want to die trying.

His floor exercise was tentative, and he scored only 9.00. And his rings routine was shaky, an 8.90. But his pommel horse routine, his specialty, was rewarded with a 9.90. And then he dressed.

“I felt bad right from the start,” he said of the pain in his leg. “During workouts it got progressively worse. It just got more and more scary. I was putting my leg through more and more advanced skills, and the more I did that, the scarier it got. I had to completely change everything I did. The leg just couldn’t take the punishment. I reached a spot when it wasn’t possible anymore.”

Almost as sad was the failure of the Haydens. The flat-top twins had a chance to go Seoul together.

Dennis, seemingly always injured, was coming on and was in position to make the final six. Certainly Dan, whose top score from the championships counted 40% toward the qualifying score, would make it.

But then a sore shoulder became dislocated on the next-to-last event. He had been flat in all his routines, but his scores really degenerated on parallel bars when he scored a 9.30. Then, on high bar, he missed a release move and fell to the mat. He could have skipped the second release move, but he felt he wouldn’t score high enough.

“I had to take the chance, even though it was hurting,” he said. He flew away from the bar again. “It’s hard to take,” he admitted, “17 years of gymnastics. Maybe I didn’t want to go (to Seoul) without Dennis. Well, it doesn’t stop here, it keeps going.”

For all the failure, there was some achievement. Lakes, a quirky performer whose training habits and appetite for new tricks have earned him a lot of criticism, proved a focused and flamboyant performer. And he’d rather be a performer than a gymnast.

“My primary objective,” he said, “is to create an effect on the audience. It’s great to be No. 1, but it’s not my objective. I like to keep it very fun for myself.”

It’s clearly fun for everybody who watches him. The crowd went wild over his high bar routine; he sails higher than anybody.

“I guess I do get high,” he admitted. “People tell me that. If I knew how high I was going, I doubt that I’d do it.”

And so the new guard, with Johnson providing a clever transition, trains for the Olympics, presumably hoping to evoke more cheers than tears from here on in.