GYMNASTICS / MARYANN HUDSON : Zmeskal Wins, but Isn’t Always Winning Respect

After Kim Zmeskal won the all-around title last September at the World Gymnastics Championships in Indianapolis, defending champion Svetlana Boguinskaia of the then-Soviet Union said she did not believe Zmeskal would have won had the meet been held in Europe.

Boguinskaia, who finished second to Zmeskal, wasn’t alone in dismissing Zmeskal’s performance. The belief that Zmeskal was overscored on routines that did not have a high degree of difficulty was voiced throughout the international gymnastics community.

So Zmeskal, 16, decided to prove her critics wrong by competing in the World Championships at Paris in April. It was a meet she could have skipped--it included only individual apparatus competition--but she said she wanted to show everyone that she could win in Europe.

Against a competitive field, Zmeskal won gold medals in the two routines she competed in, balance beam and the floor exercise. She also reached the semifinals in the uneven bars but relinquished her spot to teammate Betty Okino, who won a silver.

Still, the criticism continues. Some say Zmeskal’s beam routine includes skills of the lowest degree of difficulty and that the only reasons she won were because other gymnasts fell off the beam or performed routines full of wobbles and breaks, such as Boguinskaia’s. Even Okino fell, finishing eighth.

Critics say that Zmeskal consistently scores high with routines that are not difficult because the rule book is outdated. They say that the rule book needs to be changed to rate difficulty higher so that the tiniest mistakes don’t lower the score as much.

But the bottom line is that Zmeskal wins. In a country where potential superstar gymnasts fade quickly, the stoic, determined Zmeskal has somehow endured nearly two years of hype.

“Kim was the hit of Paris,” said Dwight Normile of International Gymnast magazine. “It could have been a no-win situation for her. But she said she came to prove everyone wrong. She even upgraded her floor exercise routine in difficulty specifically to prove that she could perform it. And she did. Her chances to win (at Barcelona) this summer are very strong.”

Add Paris: Also a hit in Paris was Henrietta Onodi of Hungary, who won the vault. Boguinskaia finished second in the vault, but did not initially show up on the podium to receive her silver medal. Apparently she was in the warmup room watching the award ceremony on television when she decided to join in. She ran into the arena waving to the crowd.

Dominique Dawes, 15, of Silver Spring, Md., performed an excellent floor exercise routine until she made a mistake near the end. She got only as far as the semifinals in vault. Dawes was not chosen by the U.S. coaching staff to compete on beam, which some consider her best event. The coaching staff included Bela and Marta Karolyi, who had Zmeskal, Okino and Kerri Strug, and Kelly Hill, who had Dawes.

Shannon Miller, 15, who alternates in status with Okino as the second-ranked U.S. gymnast, dislocated her elbow before the Paris meet and did not compete. . . . Paris was Okino’s first meet since November, when she split a shinbone during a vault run and underwent surgery. She has a permanent screw in the bone now. . . . Paul O’Neill, the NCAA rings champion from 1987-89, finished fourth, the highest of the U.S. men.

They didn’t have sponsors or financial help, but Bill Tom and Dick Beckner were so determined to make the 1956 Olympic team that they supplemented their high protein diet with horse meat bought from a pet shop. With Tom and Beckner, the U.S. team finished sixth at Melbourne that summer. Last week, they were honored at a banquet in Lincoln, Neb., where they were inducted into the Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Tom, the national gymnastics champion in 1949, graduated from Occidental College and teaches at L.A. Trade Technical College. He is still winning championships, only now in badminton. Beckner also taught in Los Angeles and retired last year.

Also inducted were Jacob Geier, former University of Nebraska coach and one of the founders of the U.S. Gymnastics Federation, and Jeff Hennessey, a premier trampoline coach.

After finishing 17th in last year’s national championships, David St. Pierre of Broadway Gymnastics in Santa Monica finished fourth at this season’s Winter Nationals, a meet that re-ranks the men’s national team. St. Pierre, 24, of Culver City, competed for UCLA and graduated this year with a degree in anthropology. He missed the national team cut in 1990, and for the last 1 1/2 years has been training under former Soviet coach Henri Venitsyan.

There were whispers of a comeback by Brandy Johnson, whose 10th-place finish at the 1988 Olympics was the highest for an American, but her mother said she decided to forgo it.

“She went back into the gym, but she realized that there wasn’t enough time or coaching help,” her mother, Kathy Johnson said. “Brandy (now 19) is still thinking about returning, but it is tough. She is willing to stay in the gym until 11 at night, but she needs help and she can’t expect her coach (Kevin Brown) to give up his other students and just work with her.”

Brandy has other interests, though. She is training as a stunt woman and has a part in a movie, “Passenger 57.” She also has the second lead in a television series being shopped. Besides that, she travels the country giving clinics and is a 4.0 student at Seminole Community College in Florida.

Gymnastics Notes

Sandy Woolsey, one of the country’s most consistent gymnasts, retired from competition because of a hip injury that is preventing her from training for the Olympics. Woolsey was a member of the national team for four years and finished eighth all-around in the 1989 World Championships. In 1991, Woolsey made the World Championship team but was reduced to an alternate position by the coaching staff days before the meet began. . . . The U.S. Championships will be held May 14-17 at the St. John Arena at Ohio State. The top 12 women and the top 18 men advance to the Olympic trials in Baltimore, June 11-13. The U.S. meet will count 30% toward the Olympic trials final score. The rhythmic championships will be held May 15-17 at Colorado Springs, Colo., with the top eight advancing to the trials June 6-7 at Baltimore.

UCLA’s Scott Keswick finished first on rings but second in the all-around to John Roethlisberger of Minnesota at the NCAA meet. Despite losing to Roethlisberger for the second consecutive year, Keswick won the George Nissen award, given to the best U.S. male college gymnast. It is the first time a Bruin has received the award since Peter Vidmar won it in 1984. The UCLA men finished eighth and the women ninth. . . . Shelley Engel of SCATS Gymnastics in Huntington Beach and Denise Fierro of Charter Oak Gymnastics in Covina have qualified for the U.S. Championships. . . . George Beckstead, a teacher at Golden West College, has been chosen as a judge for the Olympics.