Zmeskal Continues Winning Tradition : Gymnastics: New world all-around champion learned in gym of Karolyi, who also taught Retton.

Kim Zmeskal of Houston left the Hoosier Dome Friday night, her gold medal safely tucked away in the care of her mother, and her security in the care of a circle of guards who tried to keep thousands of screaming fans at bay.

She and her parents made their way across the street to their hotel, but the throng of Zmeskal wanna-bes did not leave until Zmeskal was inside a hotel restaurant. There, she and her family had a small celebration of her victory here as the best all-around gymnast at the World Championships.

“Well, we still have two more days of competition left,” Zmeskal, 15, said Saturday morning at a news conference. She had already practiced for about two hours in preparation for Saturday night’s individual apparatus final in the vault. Zmeskal, perhaps a little tired, was short on both vault landings and finished seventh out of eight with an average score of 9.7.

But there was another reason Zmeskal looked slightly tired Saturday morning.

“Last night was kind of like the night before Christmas, when you lay awake the whole night,” she said. “I don’t know if the whole thing has hit me yet.”

Zmeskal does remember hearing the “American anthem instead of the Soviet one” as she stood on the center podium to receive her medal. “That hasn’t happened in a while,” she said.

At least not in the all-around, an event Americans have never won at the World Gymnastics Championships. Moreover, Zmeskal beat Svetlana Boguinskaia and two other top Soviet gymnasts, causing them to lose the all-around title in this meet for only the second time since 1966.

“Everyone keeps asking me how I feel, and I really don’t know how I feel,” Zmeskal said.

Zmeskal does understand how her fans feel because she once was a Mary Lou Retton wanna-be. While other gymnasts only got to see Retton perform on television, Zmeskal saw Retton almost daily at Bela Karolyi’s Gymnastics in Houston. Retton was training for the 1984 Olympics with Karolyi when Zmeskal, 8, was in another group, called the Hopes.

“I always watched her in the gym, but I was embarrassed to even approach her,” Zmeskal said. “She was always smiling, even when she got hurt. She was always happy and motivated. . . . It’s a big honor to be compared to her.”

Zmeskal started taking lessons at the gym when she was 6.

Karolyi, who came to the United States from Romania in 1981, took over the ownership at the Houston gym shortly after Zmeskal joined, in 1983.

“Kimbo started with a group I used to call the pumpkin generation because they all looked like pumpkins,” Karolyi said. “Kim was a born leader, I used to call her the president of the group.

“She used to run so fast toward the horse that I would say to Mary Lou, ‘Look,there is your little sister.’ . . . But Kim was not the best in her group, there was one better. She worked really hard, non-stop and consistently. Even when she was young, the physical qualities of her were obvious.”

The one who was better, Lori White, quit ymnastics at 12, but continued to be best friends with Zmeskal. Zmeskal is the only one left from her original group.

Karolyi is known to drive gymnasts hard, and Zmeskal laughed when asked if she ever wanted to quit.

“He’s a hard coach,” she said. “Sometimes it gets frustrating when I can’t do something because I am upset (with myself) that I can’t do it and he is also mad at me because I can’t do it. But it’s those times that make the difference in the end. When we don’t feel like working, he still pushes us.”

Karolyi works with most of the students at the gym, but focuses only on one group. Zmeskal wasn’t promoted to that group until early 1989.

Shortly after, Zmeskal attracted national attention by winning the 1989 Junior National Championships. Next, she received international acclaim by winning the 1990 American Cup. Since then, she has won six international titles and back-to-back senior national championships. She has remained small (4 feet 7, 80 pounds) and has the same compact, athletic strength and explosive style as Retton.

“Kim is a little shy, but her mind is like a computer and she has nerves of steel,” Karolyi said. “She is the best in this area I have ever coached in my life. She has excellent coordination, self-discipline and concentration when everyone else is shaky.”

In order to train for this meet and the Olympics, Zmeskal skipped public high school for a private school, and is taking correspondence courses. She is expected to take two years to finish her sophomore year, but when she returns to public school after the 1992 Olympics she will be in the right grade for her age.

‘At times you may get upset or something and you think well, maybe I will quit (gymnastics) and go back to a normal life,” Zmeskal said. “But Amy Scheer quit and she tells me that it’s really not all that exciting. After the Olympics I will have the rest of my life to party, or whatever.”

After the Barcelona Games, Zmeskal will be 16 1/2. And until the Olympics, and perhaps after, Zmeskal will remain the world’s best gymnast.