WORLD SCENE : Miller, Dawes Set Sights on Atlanta ’96

So contrary is the sport of women’s gymnastics that an 18-year-old usually is considered a veteran who is either on her way out or already attempting a comeback alongside some coach who says often, “It will not be easy.”

But this year, among the 14-year-old stars, there are a couple of veterans who don’t fit that stigma. Reigning world champion Shannon Miller and national champion Dominique Dawes will be 19 when the 1996 Olympics begin in Atlanta. Ranked No. 1 and No. 5, respectively, in the world, they are both Olympians who never have quit and apparently have no plans to.

“I have no doubt they are still the top two in our country,” said Dwight Normile, editor of International Gymnast. “Dominique shows no sign of slowing down and is a more powerful gymnast, while Shannon is a more graceful gymnast. Shannon may have reached her athletic peak already and may have to rely on her experience now. Her bars and her balance beam are great but I think her tumbling might be the weakness compared to the rest of the world.

“In the world, I definitely think they are up in the top group, which also includes Lavinia Milosovici and Gina Gogean of Romania, Svetlana Khorkina and Dina Kochetkova from Russia.”

Dawes, who beat Miller for the all-around title in the national championships last year, did not compete in Oakland this weekend at the Pan American Games trials because of a stress fracture in her right foot. Miller, though, beat the rest of the Americans by nearly a point, which is considerable in gymnastics, to lead a team that includes three juniors, Dominique Moceanu, Doni Thompson and Kathy Teft. The Pan Am Games will be held next month in Argentina.

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Former Olympic champion Svetlana Boguinskaia, 22, is trying for her third Olympics and is training along with Kim Zmeskal at Bela Karolyi’s gym in Houston. Boguinskaia said she would like to compete for the United States instead of her native Belarus, but will not be able to gain citizenship in time. The only other woman gymnast to compete in three Olympics is Ludmilla Tourischeva of the Soviet Union, in 1968, 1972 and 1976.

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Zmeskal, who at 19 also is attempting a comeback, quit the sport after finishing 10th in the 1992 Olympics but says her erosion began before the Games. At the Olympic trials that year, Zmeskal beat Miller, but Miller was announced the winner. That decision was later reversed, but after months of enduring the Zmeskal vs. Miller hype, the incident had its effect.

“I don’t think of myself as believing that winning is the only thing that is important, but when I knew that I won--and I am not the type of person who likes to say anything about it--but from then on I did feel something different inside me,” Zmeskal said. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it was something that didn’t feel right, that carried on through the Olympics. . . .”

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Zmeskal, who is superstitious, wouldn’t let her mother build a trophy case in their home before the 1992 Olympics, thinking it might jinx her. “A teammate of mine built one and ended up getting mono,” Zmeskal said.

Now, more than two years later, the case still isn’t built. When she retired, she gave the project the go-ahead, but it got put off. “I did let her take the plaques and stick them on the wall,” Zmeskal said.

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Three-time Olympic long jump champion Carl Lewis, who did not compete in that event last year, plans to enter the long jump competition in the Mt. SAC Relays April 15 at Walnut. Meet organizer Dan Shrum would like to match him against world record-holder Mike Powell but is not optimistic. “There’s no money in it,” Shrum said.

Notes

Tonya Harding, who is on probation for conspiring to cover up the attack last year on rival Nancy Kerrigan, was given permission by a Multnomah County, Ore., judge last week to travel to Cologne, Germany, for three television interviews. She will be paid $25,000, which, according to the terms of her plea bargain agreement, will be donated to Oregon Special Olympics. . . . Even without Harding and Kerrigan in the competition, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships were the most-watched sports TV show the weekend before last, beating out the NBA All-Star game.

International Olympic Committee members, who will vote in June on the site for the 2002 Winter Olympics, begin visits this week to one of the four finalists, Salt Lake City. The bid committee there needs to raise $223,000 to meet its $3.6 million budget for this year. . . . Not trying to come back is Zmeskal’s best friend, Olympian Betty Okino, who is attending the University of Oklahoma at Norman but not competing because she had accepted money for performing before entering college.

Staff writer Randy Harvey contributed to this column.