U.S. Men Hope to Show Their Medal at Barcelona Games

As predictions go, this one seems feasible. But it’s still only a prediction.

Robert Cowan, director of the U.S. Gymnastics Federation’s men’s program, forecasts a bronze medal finish for the U.S. men’s team at Barcelona.

The reason the word men’s appears twice in the previous sentence is that U.S. men’s gymnastics and the word medal are not often mentioned in the same sentence.

Obviously, Cowan is biased. But he is not usually this optimistic.

“Just remember you heard it here first,” he said. “The men will finish in third place, behind the Soviets and Chinese. The Germans are going to miss on their last event, two guys are going to fall down and we will take the bronze.”

And here’s why Cowan believes the Americans will place third:

“Our main competition will be with Germany and Japan, but Japan had problems at their Olympic trials, and two of their best guys didn’t make the team.

“Germany is factionalized. At the (1991) World Championships, they only had one West German on the team and the rest are East Germans. And our team this year is one of the most well-balanced, self-motivated teams we have ever had. The similarities to our 1984 team are incredible.”

Even if the Americans do finish third, they will be well behind the Commonwealth of Independent States, which, as the Soviet Union, won the 1991 World Championships by seven points, equivalent in football to about seven touchdowns. The majority of those gymnasts, led by world champion Grigori Misiutin, will be back this summer to compete for the CIS.

China has a seasoned group led by Li Jing.

But Germany, led by veterans Sylvio Kroll and Andreas Wecker, might be able to set aside political differences more easily than Cowan believes and win the bronze. Certainly they did so at the 1991 World Championships, when the same team finished 1.2 points ahead of Japan and 6.4 ahead of the Americans.

Still, the U.S. team did an admirable job, considering that its No. 1 gymnast, Lance Ringnald, suffered a shoulder injury during competition and withdrew, leaving the Americans with a five-member team. That’s when UCLA’s Scott Keswick emerged as the team leader. He finished 10th overall.

Yet the comparison Cowan makes of the 1992 team to that of 1984, the only American men’s team to win a gold medal in Olympic competition, is hard to ignore.

That team had three UCLA gymnasts--Peter Vidmar, Tim Daggett and Mitch Gaylord--who entered the Games ranked 1-2-3, respectively. The 1992 team has former Bruins Keswick and Chris Waller ranked 1-2. Keswick, 22, of Las Vegas and and Waller, 23, of Mt. Prospect, Ill., have trained together at UCLA for the last four years, and are close friends as well as teammates.

“The way Chris and Scott push each other in the gym and their competitiveness with each other reminds me so much of Daggett and Vidmar,” Cowan said.

“Dominick Minicucci (23, of Temple University) is consistent like (1984 Olympian) Jim Hartung was. He will go six for six in his routines. Trent Dimas (21, of Albuquerque, N.M.) is a lot like Gaylord, flashy, good looking, and if he hits, he’s going to win. And the thing that impresses me is their intelligence. They are aware of our history, both of winning and losing.”

There has been more losing than winning to remember. In 1988, the men finished 11th among 12 teams at Seoul. Both Minicucci and Ringnald were on the 1988 team. This time, Ringnald, 21, of Albuquerque, is the alternate.

Also on the team are Stanford’s Jair Lynch, 20, and Minnesota’s John Roethlisberger, 21, the national champion.

Keswick has been the best all-around elite gymnast in the country for the last year. But his best performance, by far, was at the Olympic trials in June, where he hit every routine and finished ahead of Waller by .822 points.