Ray Extends Overall Lead, but All Else Up in the Air

Shannon Miller landed on her rear end. Vanessa Atler landed on her back. Amy Chow couldn’t stay on the big, big mat and Jamie Dantzscher nearly took a header into the balance beam.

On the first night of the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics trials, a crowd of 15,035 at FleetCenter had to cringe and gasp, inhale in fear, exhale in relief when so many little women kept getting up and going on.

But the nerves were taut. Miller was nearly in tears when she landed on her bottom on her first vault and Atler was stunned and groggy after she took a scary tumble from the balance beam and landed, splat, on her back.

Yes, there are rankings now, after 70% of the process for choosing the Olympic team was concluded.

The unflappable Elise Ray, 18, of Columbia, Md., who scored no lower than 9.499 (on the vault) and with a 9.812 on the uneven bars, increased the lead she held after the U.S. National Championships in St. Louis last month and has firmly established herself as the best U.S. all-around gymnast.

Kristen Maloney, 19, of Pen Argyl, Penn., a two-time U.S. national all-around champion, was still in second place. But Maloney had faded a bit Friday night. Chow, a veteran of the 1996 gold medal team, even with her big step off the mat during her floor exercise, scored second-highest on the night and is third overall in this two-part process.

The scores from last month’s national championships count for 40% of Sunday night’s final number while the two rounds of competition here will count for 60%.

Ultimately, though, it is the opinion of one man, U.S. team coordinator Bela Karolyi, that matters. Karolyi has full reign to pick any six women and one alternate he wants for the team.

So while Miller, a seven-time Olympic medalist who missed all but one event at the nationals, could be heartened when Karolyi said that Miller is, “Right there, right there. She’s going to be getting stronger every day,” Miller might also have felt a shudder of fear if she heard Karolyi also say that it was “unlikely all three performers from the ’96 team will make it.”

Only three of the Magnificent Seven, as the gold medal winners had been called, are still competing. Chow, a 22-year-old Stanford senior, is in third place and was second Friday night; Dominique Dawes, 23, who has a fledgling Broadway career, is in seventh place overall, though she scored sixth-highest Friday night.

And Miller, 23, who is married and who only decided to make this comeback in January, was seventh Friday night and stands 11th of the 13 gymnasts left because she competed in only one event in St. Louis.

Karolyi was effusive in praising tiny Morgan White, 17, of Fairfield, Ohio. “She is our sturdiest all-arounder,” Karolyi said. White moved into fifth place overall after scoring fourth-highest in the first round of the trials.

Dantzscher, an elegant 18-year-old from San Dimas, was given a low 8.562 on the balance beam, where she bobbled and stumbled and nearly knocked her head on the block of wood but never fell down. She came back to score a 9.812 on the floor exercise and receive the loudest ovation of the night.

But Dantzscher, who had been third overall after nationals, dropped to fourth with fifth-place numbers Friday night.

She is directly on the bubble, vulnerable to being left behind if Karolyi feels more comfortable with veterans such as Miller and Dawes. And Atler, who has twice been national runner-up in the all-around competition, dropped to sixth place overall Friday after a ninth-place performance.

When Atler, an 18-year-old from Canyon Country, was lying breathless on her back after taking one bad step on her dismount, Karolyi rushed over and gathered her in a bearhug.

“Bela told me, ‘Now you’re madder for Sunday,’ ” Atler said.

The post-competition press gathering was more like confession time.

Dantzscher tried to convince herself that Karolyi liked her. “If it weren’t for Bela,” Dantzscher said, “I wouldn’t be here. When I wasn’t with a coach Bela convinced me to keep trying, that I could do this.”

Atler kept giggling and saying that, “I wish I was inside Bela’s head. Nothing matters but what Bela thinks.”

Miller’s coach, Steve Nunno, was almost unseemly in his lobbying. The team will need veterans, he said. It was the worst performance he had seen by Maloney on the balance beam, Nunno said. Not coincidentally, beam is one of Miller’s strong events.

So now it comes down to Sunday night, the finals. But no one will watch the scores. Everyone will watch Karolyi’s face. It will be all that matters.