Olga, Nadia, Mary Lou . . . Kim? : Zmeskal Has Lived with Potential of Being the Best: Now Comes the Pressure

What could Bela Karolyi possibly have left to tell Kim Zmeskal? He already spends seven hours a day with her, six days a week, and has been coaching her for nine years.

But while she is competing, he is as intense as ever--motioning to her, head bobbing, arms flying. She stares up at him even more intensely--nodding, her ponytail bouncing.

This, after she has scored a 10 on the vault.

“Well, I’m not perfect yet--I need more correction,” Zmeskal said. “And I know some mistakes I made today, that’s for sure.”

Zmeskal did have an unusual day last month at the Olympic trials in Baltimore, where she actually botched a couple of routines. Nothing drastic--she didn’t fall off the beam or anything like that.

But even a few wobbles are uncharacteristic for this 16-year-old. With her toughness and athleticism, Zmeskal has thrived on a career in the spotlight thrown on her two years ago when Karolyi predicted that she would be the next Mary Lou Retton.

Never before has a superstar gymnast in this country stayed a superstar so long. Usually, they fade under pressure or they grow, up or out.

And never before has Karolyi had a gymnast touted for so long before the Olympics. Retton, also a student of Karolyi’s, was unveiled to the world shortly before the 1984 Olympics. Nadia Comaneci, Karolyi’s protege when he was in Romania, was virtually unknown before the 1976 Olympics at Montreal.

But Zmeskal seems to have gained in mental strength during the last two years. She was the first American to win a world all-around championship and is the favorite to win the gold at Barcelona.

“We don’t know what it is about Kim that makes her so strong,” said Clarice Zmeskal, Kim’s mother. “I am sure she feels the pressure, but we don’t talk about it. When we pick her up from the gym, it stays there. And when she’s at Bela’s ranch training, our phone conversations are about other things, things she needs, like that.

“She carries a lot inside of her.”

So, what happened that day in Baltimore when Zmeskal wobbled?

“I got a little ahead of myself,” she said.

Karolyi had a tirade after the trials ended and went anything but softly into the Baltimore night. He said that Zmeskal wobbled because her confidence wavered. He blamed the U.S. Gymnastics Federation’s method of scoring the trials, which allowed another gymnast, Shannon Miller, to finish first, even though Zmeskal had won the meet. If that sounds confusing, it is.

“There was a lot of pressure on Kim at the trials, and that was the first time I saw it bother her,” her mother said. “But that was more the way the scoring was done than it was Shannon.”

Meanwhile, Zmeskal, made it unscathed through the post-competition news conference, without her coach.

“None of this is going to matter anyway,” Zmeskal said of the scoring and the infighting. “What are people going to remember next year? All they are going to remember is who won the Olympics, not this meet.”

Later that evening she returned to the arena with Hilary Grivich, her teammate and good friend at Karolyi’s, to watch the men’s competition. Sitting in the VIP stands, the 4-foot-7 Zmeskal and a similar-sized Grivich giggled and talked, pointed at funny things happening in the stands and giggled some more.

Separated from both leotard and expectation, it was easy to remember that Zmeskal is merely 16.

Clarice and David Zmeskal have spent years planning vacations, anniversaries and birthday parties around Kim’s schedule. But this obsession with gymnastics wasn’t their choice. It was hers.

Since she was 6, Zmeskal has been training for this year. The Zmeskal family, which also includes brother Eric, 8, and sister, Melissa, 12, lived in Houston, less than a mile from the gym Karolyi took over shortly after his defection from Romania. Zmeskal had recently started taking lessons there when Karolyi arrived.

As one of a group of young gymnasts, Zmeskal trained with Karolyi’s assistants while the older, elite few, among them Retton, trained in the same gym. Watching Retton was the only inspiration Zmeskal needed.

Karolyi doesn’t remember noticing Zmeskal at first. Later, he told Retton that Zmeskal looked like her little sister.

“When Kim was a junior, she would run across the mat and her little feet would pump so fast, just like Mary Lou,” Karolyi said.

Three years ago, at the American Cup, Karolyi unveiled Zmeskal to the world, declaring her to be the next Retton. Her style is similar to Retton’s--strong and athletic. Zmeskal won the meet. She had just turned 14.

“I remember when Kim first won the national championships (1990) and I thought, ‘Gee, she has two more of these (nationals) to go before the Olympics, how can a person stay on top that long?’ ” her mother said. “It hadn’t been done before and it scared me. I remember thinking how it was too bad she is this good now, she needs to peak out a couple of years from now. But she managed to stay there.”

Zmeskal won three consecutive national championships. And against the odds, she beat the top gymnast in the world, Svetlana Boguinskaia, at the 1991 World Championships in Indianapolis.

Then, when critics said Zmeskal had won the title only because the meet was in the United States, she went to Paris for the 1992 World Championships in individual events. She won gold medals in the two events she competed in, beam and floor, beating Boguinskaia again.

Now, even though she has worthy challengers--including Miller and Tatiana Gutsu, the latest Russian star--it is Zmeskal who is favored to win Olympic gold.

“Sometimes I can’t even believe it’s happening,” Zmeskal said. “I will be somewhere and people will come up to me for my autograph and I wonder how they know me. Or when I’m watching myself on TV, it’s like I think only me and my family or friends are seeing it.”

One of the reasons often given for Zmeskal’s emotional balance is that she has been able to live at home. Her family has not had to move or send their little girl to live with another family so she could train at an elite gym.

“I’ve been able to sleep in my own bed and be around my brother and sister,” Zmeskal said. “People always ask me about all that I have given up in order to be a gymnast. But I don’t see it that way. I look at it as what am I receiving. That’s how we all look at it.”

But what she is giving up isn’t the only question Zmeskal is asked. She is often questioned about what she is getting from Karolyi, whose method of coaching seems to fall under scrutiny about this time each Olympic year.

In a recent article in the Baltimore Sun, several embittered former students and a few mothers said that Karolyi’s treatment is mentally abusive, putting too much pressure on mere children. They claimed he carries the yelling and name-calling too far.

Zmeskal said she wouldn’t have Karolyi any other way.

“If we didn’t like what he was doing, then we wouldn’t be doing it,” Zmeskal said. “We aren’t being forced to be there. We like what we are getting out of it. I’m staying there because I believe he can make me the best gymnast I can be, and so do the other girls.”

Erica Stokes, one of Karolyi’s elite students who recently quit the sport, said in that article that the pressure Karolyi put on her caused her to become bulimic. Stokes, who was fighting her weight when she couldn’t train because of an injury, said that Karolyi had called her “the pregnant goat.” Stokes’ mother said Erica has since overcome her bulimia.

Zmeskal was surprised when told about Stokes.

“Erica is a good friend of mine,” she said. “And she is not bulimic. I know that. Erica had a lot of injuries, and when you are injured it’s hard to be anywhere because there is nothing to do but to sit and watch.”

Zmeskal has damaged growth plates in her left wrist, but her mother says the condition will reverse itself when she quits training. “Karolyi isn’t the coach for everyone,” Clarice Zmeskal said. “But he is the coach Kim wants. If Kim didn’t like it, she would leave. His type of coaching is what Kim thinks she needs. He demands perfection. There is absolutely no fooling around.”

To train more, Zmeskal dropped out of regular high school last year and is taking correspondence courses through Texas Tech University. She is two courses shy of being a high school junior.

“What have I given up? “ Zmeskal asked. “Going to school or football games? I travel all over the world and I’ve met so many people. There will be plenty of time for everything later.”

Zmeskal likes math, New Kids on the Block, “Days of Our Lives” and Arsenio Hall.

Sounds normal enough.

“Plus, I wouldn’t have let her date before anyway,” her mom said. “She just turned 16.”

Zmeskal is a little superstitious, and she has made her family that way. With medals stacking up everywhere in their house, her mother wanted to buy a trophy case or some piece of furniture to put them in. “But Kim told me not to change anything until after the Olympics,” her mother said. “She said she knew of a friend whose parents built a new house and they built a trophy case, and as soon as they did that, the friend didn’t win anymore. So I said, ‘OK, I’ll just let them stack up.’ The whole family is basically feeling like, ‘Let’s not change anything.’ ”

Zmeskal’s father, Dave, is a sales manager for a welding supply company. Clarice works in finance and budgeting for Mobil Oil, which recently held a Kim Zmeskal Appreciation Day at the Houston facility. Co-workers chipped in to help send the family to Barcelona.

“It’s overwhelming,” Clarice said. “I’m so proud of Kim. This has been her dream for 10 years and here it is.

“At first it was just her doing gymnastics and then it got serious. She’s made everybody proud. She’s a true athlete, and if she does not win a medal in Barcelona we will still be just as proud of her.”

Kim Zmeskal would like Barcelona to be the best possible memory. When she grows old, she said, she would like to tell her grandchildren about it. She would like to evoke memories in others simply at the mention of her first name, as do Olga, Nadia and Mary Lou.

And when she is talking with her grandchildren, she would like to illustrate the story with a gold medal.