THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 9 : Women’s Gymnastics : Mills Picks Up a Bronze on Beam

The Soviet women, who appeared above the fray in the Olympic team and individual competitions, showed some vulnerability in the women’s events finals Sunday when Romania’s Daniela Silivas won three gold medals and a bronze.

Those victories stung all the more as the all-around champion, Elena Shoushounova of the Soviet Union, was stumbling to just one silver and one bronze, acquiring more embarrassment than acclaim.

And never mind Romania’s medal count after its second-place team finish. What speaks of Soviet vulnerability more than this: A U.S. girl, Phoebe Mills, 15, cracked the Eastern Bloc lineup to win a bronze on the beam, this happening when another Soviet favorite, young Svetlana Boguinskaya, wavered like a reed in a tall wind.

“This wakes up the judges and the other countries,” declared Bela Karolyi, Mills’ coach. “It’s a jungle out there but this shows we can fight through it. This is a good start.”

Sunday, Shoushounova hardly seemed to be putting in an appearance. In her first event, the 19-year-old Soviet took a small hop on her first vault and then landed on her knees on the second vault. Silivas, who had lost the all-around title on this very event, averaged a 9.918 for the bronze, some consolation. Boguinskaya, 15, the third-place finisher from the all-around, won the gold. Silivas’ teammate, Gabriela Potorac, won the silver.

Shoushounova threw another 10 on uneven bars but then so did Silivas and East Germany’s Dagmar Kersten. This is the last Olympics in which previous scores of the compulsory and optional competition will count in the scoring of the apparatus finals. But count they did, and Silivas, whose previous score was a 10, won the gold, Kersten, a silver and Shoushounova, a bronze.

It grew briefly interesting on the balance beam when Silivas just barely edged Shoushounova for the gold.

The real surprise, though, was Mills, whose disappointing 15th-place finish in the all-around was a direct result of a fall on the beam. She barely quivered this time and received a 9.962 for a total of 19.837 points, to tie with Potorac for the bronze medal.

“This makes up for a lot,” Mills said. “I was nervous but I used it to help my routine. It was my best ever in my life.”

In the floor exercise, Mills scored only a 9.762, a total of 19.662, a disappointment perhaps, but nothing like Shoushounova’s. After Silivas’ 9.987, Shoushounova roared into a routine that had earned her 10s in both optionals last week. But she slipped on her first dismount and then, uncharacteristically, sat down on her second. So she had finished second, third, seventh and eighth. A bad day’s work.

But, of course, she still had her team gold and her all-around gold. If little else.

The other U.S. performers showed promise, too. Brandy Johnson, the 15-year-old who had surprised Karolyi by saying she would stick with gymnastics the other day, had one of the day’s best vaults, a 9.949 average. But for the fact that apparatus scores must be combined with scores achieved during the team competition, Johnson would have won a medal.

The other U.S. gymnast, Kelly Garrison-Steves, received the third best score on the beam, 9.862, but again, combined with previous scores, finished seventh.

All this seemed to bode well for the Americans, who came close to winning a bronze medal in team competition, but suffered a .50 point deduction for a rule infraction, and finished fourth.

“There were some bad sides,” Karolyi said, “taking their big dream from them. But there were good parts. The kids said, ‘I’m gonna show you,’ and they did.”

They showed something, but of course, Romania’s Silivas showed more. But that’s grist for another world championship.