BARCELONA '92 OLYMPICS / DAY 8 : Miller Adds 3 Medals : Gymnastics: She finishes with two silver, three bronze. Zmeskal falls in beam, stumbles in floor exercise.

By BILL GLAUBER

Aug. 2, 1992 12 AM PT

BALTIMORE SUN

BARCELONA —

OK, so she’s not Mary Lou Retton. She doesn’t sparkle while tumbling. She doesn’t smile on cue. She doesn’t leap into the arms of a coach.

All Shannon Miller does is pile up medals in the Summer Olympics.

Saturday night, the 4-foot-9, 73-pound gymnast who wears heart-shaped diamond earrings and performs with a grimace on her face, won a silver and two bronzes in the women’s individual apparatus.

With a silver in the all-around and a bronze in the team competition, Miller finished the Games with five medals, tying Retton’s American record from the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

If she were a country, the 15-year-old from Edmond, Okla., would crack the top-20 medal count. Apparently, that’s a statistic that hits home.

When Miller arrives at Dulles Airport, near Washington, Tuesday, she will be met by a private jet that will whisk her to a hometown celebration in Edmond. Oklahoma Gov. David Walters plans to greet the Sooner state’s newest star.

On a night when Miller won medals on the balance beam, the vault and the floor exercise, two of her competitors were getting perfect marks.

Lu Li of China received the first 10 of the Olympic competition when she won the gold medal on the uneven bars. An hour later, Romanian teen-ager Lavinia Milosovici, who watched “Rocky III” for inspiration, performed a floor routine to “The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” and got a 10 and a gold.

Henrietta Onodi, the elegant Hungarian stylist who usually wilts under the stress of competition, won the vault with a 9.925. Tatiana Lisenko of Ukraine and the Commonwealth of Independent States won on the balance beam with a 9.975.

About the only prize they didn’t hand out was a lifetime achievement award. Kim Zmeskal of Houston and Svetlana Boguinskaia of the CIS were sent toward retirement without individual medals.

Zmeskal, 16, was expected to contend for the all-around gold. Instead, after a fall off the balance beam in the team competition and a stumble out of bounds in the all-around, she took home one team bronze medal.

“I’m happy the team got a bronze, and I’m proud and happy for Shannon,” a teary-eyed Zmeskal said.

The night also marked the retirement from competition of Zmeskal’s coach, Bela Karolyi.

“I saw kids eaten up and torn apart, and I said, ‘That’s enough,’ ” Karolyi said, reaffirming his declaration that he would step aside from team competition.

For the first time in memory, Karolyi actually sat down during a meet, a sign that a reign--his and Zmeskal’s--was over.

“I used every trick I know from 30 years of coaching to motivate Kim, but I was fighting with windmills,” Karolyi said.

Zmeskal flopped on her behind on a second vault. And she probably ended her competitive career with her familiar “Rock Around the Clock” floor exercise routine. But once again, she stumbled at the end of a tumbling pass, and the judges kept her off the crowded medal podium.

While all-around champion Tatiana Gutsu of the CIS, Cristina Bontas of Romania and Miller were given scores of 9.912 and matching bronzes, Zmeskal received a 9.900.

“Kim has the most dynamic floor routine,” Karolyi said. “It had everything in it but the heart.”

The night, at least for the Americans, belonged to Miller. Five months after breaking a bone chip loose from her left elbow in a fall from the uneven bars, Miller is now the preeminent U.S. gymnast of her generation.

“I’m proud of all the medals,” said Miller, who received a silver on the balance beam and another bronze on the uneven bars. “I was focused on the competition. There was a little less pressure in the individual events.”

Miller said she wants to stay in the sport and lead the United States into the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. But her coach, Steve Nunno, said competing in two Olympics in a sport age dominated by teen-agers would be difficult.

“If anyone can do it, Shannon can,” he said. “She has survived a lot.”

In a demanding pre-Olympic campaign, it was Karolyi’s kid, Zmeskal, who cracked, while Nunno’s gymnast, Miller, soared.

Did pressure knock out the favorite, Zmeskal?

“It was a Kim-and-Shannon show,” Nunno said. “The victory goes to the one who tries harder, who is more committed, who is hungrier. The loser gets destroyed. And unfortunately, it’s a 16-year-old girl.”

Gymnastics Medalists

* WOMEN’S BALANCE BEAM

GOLD: Tatiana Lisenko (CIS)

SILVER: Lu Li (China)

Shannon Miller (United States)

* WOMEN’S FLOOR EXERCISE

GOLD: Lavinia Corina Milosovici (Romania)

SILVER: Henrietta Onodi (Hungary)

BRONZE: Shannon Miller (United States)

Cristina Bontas (Romania)

Tatiana Gutsu (CIS)

* WOMEN’S UNEVEN BARS