SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 15 : GETTING TO THE POINT

Gigi Fernandez doesn’t get to the post-match news conference podium much, and for journalists, that’s a shame. She is a doubles specialist, and they get interviewed about as much as golf caddies.

But when she won the women’s doubles gold medal for the United States, teaming with Mary Joe Fernandez, there she was, center stage. And it was fun.

Asked if she regretted not representing her native Puerto Rico in the Olympics, Gigi Fernandez did what she does best--get right to the point: “If I had played for Puerto Rico, I wouldn’t have had Mary Joe for a partner and I’d have been home long ago.”

Asked if she had felt better after going off the court between the second and third sets and changing her shirt, she said: “Actually, I had to go to the bathroom. I had to go for five or six games. It was so bad I could hardly move out there. There it is. The truth comes out.”

* This a daily roundup of Olympic-related items from reporters in Barcelona from the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and Baltimore Sun, all Times-Mirror newspapers.