Atler Flunks Her Bar Exam

A fall was Vanessa Atler’s downfall. Yet again.

She stands on the brink of potential Olympic stardom, but a mental block that by now must seem as big as all of Australia has overtaken her.

Atler, the 17-year-old from Canyon Country who is among the top contenders for the Sydney Games, led 1998 U.S. champion Kristen Maloney by .037 of a point Thursday entering the final rotation of the all-around at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships at Arco Arena.

Nothing but the uneven bars between her and her second title in three years.

Nothing but the bars: Easy to say. But for Atler, so hard to get her hands around.

She has fallen from the bars the last two years at nationals, and a move called the Comaneci salto has become a bugaboo she cannot seem to shake.

And so it seemed scripted that the national title came down to the bars Thursday.

First up on the bars in the final rotation, Atler tested the skill--a trick on which she reaches between her legs to grab the high bar as she flips over it--and caught it twice in warmups.

Moments later, incredibly, she missed and fell to the mat, a mistake that left her with a score of 9.175 and made Maloney, 18, a repeat national champion.

Maloney, from Pen Argyl, Pa., finished with a 9.587 on vault after Atler’s fall, and won the all-around title with a score of 38.687 in front of a crowd of 7,715.

Atler was second with 38.312.

“Yes, I did it again,” Atler said, smiling through her disappointment. “People keep telling me to change my bars, but it’s more myself. That’s my bar routine, and I’m going to keep it.”

Jennie Thompson of Cincinnati took the bronze with a score of 38.112. Jamie Dantzscher of San Dimas was fifth and UCLA’s Heidi Moneymaker was 21st.

Atler is a gymnast of tremendous power and such appeal that USA Today has already wondered if she is “the next Mary Lou.”

Her sophisticated floor routine set to a tango earned a 9.85--the highest score of the competition.

Famous on vault for having the highest combined start value in the world, Atler didn’t try her handspring-layout rudi, which has a start value of 10. Instead she did only a half twist because her training was limited until the last few weeks because of an ankle injury.

But her second vault, a double-twisting Yurchenko, earned a 9.712.

She scored a 9.575 on beam, her first event.

But it came down to bars, and that was that.

“I thought I was going to make it, but I always do,” she said.

“I make it in practice, all the time. . . . But of course I was thinking about it. It’s hard not to.”

Now some of the pre-Olympic pressure shifts to Maloney, who has won back-to-back national titles despite chronic shin soreness.

“It was pretty sore this morning,” Maloney said. “I don’t know, during meets, it kind of goes away.”

Exactly what can happen to a much-hyped Olympic hopeful was on display Thursday in a vivid orange leotard: Kristie Phillips, at 27, is enjoying lukewarm but spirited success in a comeback more than a decade after she was tagged the next Mary Lou Retton before the 1988 Olympics.

On the cover of Sports Illustrated at 14, Phillips finished eighth at the Olympic trials, didn’t make it to Seoul, and left the sport feeling like a failure so bitter that she didn’t watch the Olympics.

Phillips ended up sitting on the mat Thursday after a fall from the uneven bars, earning a 7.675.

Phillips finished 23rd, but did it with obvious delight at competing and jousting with the crowd.

A gymnast who won’t be old enough for Sydney, Kristal Uzelac, dominated the first day of the junior competition earlier, winning the vault, beam and floor exercise and taking third in the bars.

Uzelac is 13, and next summer will be 14--the same age Dominique Moceanu was in Atlanta--but a new rule requires female gymnasts to be 16 to participate in the Olympics or World Championships.

Right behind Uzelac, who had a score of 37.975 after the first day of the junior all-around competition, is Tabitha Yim of Irvine, who took silver on the floor and balance beam and is second with a score of 37.037.

Yim counts Atler as her inspiration.

“She helps me, talks to me and keeps me motivated,” Yim said. “She’s awesome.”