U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL LOS ANGELES 1991 : WOMEN’S GYMNASTICS : Engel’s Development Yields Gold Medal

Shelley Engel looks so much like U.S. national gymnastics champion Kim Zmeskal that the resemblance even fooled Engel’s own sister.

“My daughter came running out of the room one day and said, ‘Mom, Mom, Shelley is on television,’ ” Paula Engel said. “I said, ‘No she’s not, she’s at practice.’ ”

Engel, 15, from Huntington Beach, not only looks like Zmeskal, but her success is also beginning to resemble that of the American star. Engel’s style, though, is all her own.

Friday night Engel got to climb on the winner’s platform and receive her first gold medal as the best all-around gymnast. And she did it at the U.S. Olympic Festival competition at UCLA in front of 4,750, many of them her own supporters. She finished with a score of 38.525 to edge Denise Fierro, 15, of Covina, who finished at 38.375. Jennifer Mercier, 17, of Waterville, Me., finished third at 38.300.

Chelle Stack, 17, of Houston, started out strong but fell in the floor exercise to finish eighth.

Engel has been part of a developmental program engineered by Don Peters, her coach at SCATS Gymnastics in Huntington Beach. As part of the program, he held Engel out of competition and concentrated more on development.

This year Peters started Engel in competition and by her fifth competition--the U.S. national championships held last month--she had placed 11th in the country.

“This year our goal was to make a splash, get everybody to know Shelley,” Peters said. “Well, she has already made a splash. The pond is still rippling. . . .”

And here, Peters was worried. Because he is training Engel for the World Championship trials, he couldn’t do any confidence training in which he praises Engel for everything rather than picking her efforts apart.

“I have been picking at her for weeks, and I just don’t know how it will affect her,” he said earlier.

Engel doesn’t appear to be affected by anything. She scored a 9.8 on vault to open the meet and take the lead. Stack opened strong on the uneven bars to place second. But on Engel’s second event, the uneven bars, she missed the bar on a release move, and fell. She scored a 9.1 and fell to eighth place.

Stack had a solid beam routine and scored a 9.65 to move to first place. With a good floor routine, she could have kept the lead. But she fell on her first tumbling run, scoring a 9.05 and dropping to eighth.

By the time Engel mounted the beam she had forgotten about her fall on the bars. It’s her best event--replete with her own move, the “Engel,” which is a sideways cartwheel followed by a side flip. The flip is a blind maneuver, and she hit it as well as her other difficult flips and scored a 9.875, the highest mark of the meet.

Fierro, who trains at Charter Oak Gymnastics, had her best meet as an elite gymnast. She performed solidly in every event and had an outstanding bar routine to score a personal high of 9.75.

Fierro placed 21st at the championships, missing a spot on the national team by 13/100ths of a point. Friday, Fierro beat nine gymnasts who had placed higher than her at the national championships.