Tag-Along Nears the Finish Line

Orange County will have swimmers, shooters, wrestlers, sailors, even a trampolinist in the 2000 Summer Olympics. We will have softball players, volleyball players, water polo players, heck, practically the entire water polo teams, men and women.

There are so many compelling stories to tell, so many dramatic moments to come. It isn’t always easy to appreciate these moments, to pay attention to the stories when the people involved are strangers.

So in a series of columns over the next few weeks, we’ll introduce you to Huntington Beach’s Jeanette Antolin as she polishes routines, ices achy body parts and then gets back up on the balance beam to work out again, travels to St. Louis and Boston for the two-part Olympic trials and then sweats as icon Bela Karolyi ponders scores and routines and intangibles such as shape of body and who looks good on the tumbling mat. Finally he’ll make a determination on which seven girls--six competitors and an alternate--go to Australia.

Antolin is 18, a recent graduate of Marina High and a talented gymnast who is training furiously, six or seven hours a day, with her coach, Don Peters, at SCATS Gymnastics in Huntington Beach. She is right in the mix, a “bubble girl,” her coach says, talented enough to be on the team but not so talented that one untimely fall couldn’t keep her off.

Antolin has an older brother, Gilbert, and an older sister, Katie. Katie was the first gymnast in the family, taller than Jeanette, longer-limbed, graceful. “Wow” was what coaches always said when Katie, 20, would start to perform. Jeanette went to the gym because she loved her big sister, wanted to be like her. Jeanette isn’t exactly like Katie. Jeanette is shorter, blessed with more strength but with less balletic grace.

Katie was also cursed with a congenital condition in her back. Six years ago, she was always in pain and had to quit gymnastics. Eventually, with rest and with experimentation, finding routines and events during which her back would not bother her, Katie came back to the sport and competed for two years at Cal State Fullerton. But Katie was never able to compete at an elite national level again.

Tag-along Jeanette kept plugging away, though.

Orlando and Nola Antolin were raising their children outside Chico before gymnastics came along.

Nola saw a newspaper ad for a “Mommie and Me” gymnastics class. Nola, who had been a sprinter in high school, liked to keep in shape and brought Katie and Jeanette to the class. The teachers went “Wow” when they saw Katie, saw how she was supple and lithe, practically bendable. And, oh yeah, Jeanette was good too.

In 1991 the best coaches in Chico weren’t able to keep up with Katie and Jeanette.

Nola called Peters, who had coached Olympians, and asked if she drove to Huntington Beach, would he look at her girls? Peters said yes. He saw Katie and said, “Wow.” He said Jeanette could come along too.

So Nola moved to Huntington Beach with the three children. Orlando stayed in Chico for a year, working in construction while the girls learned gymnastics at a high level.

“Coaches always thought Katie was the talented one,” Peters says as Jeanette stretches, getting ready for an afternoon workout. “I know Jeanette always heard that Katie was the one who would go to the Olympics. But what Jeanette has always had is the spirit of a fighter. I think she has more of a competitive instinct.”

Nola took on two jobs, working at SCATS in the afternoon and teaching reading in the morning. Orlando moved to Orange County. Nola and Orlando divorced, nothing to do with gymnastics or the separation but just a growing apart, Nola says. Orlando is still close to his family, living in Anaheim. Nola is Italian and Orlando is Mexican and Jeanette has found out that if she were to qualify for the Olympics, she would be the first woman of Latino heritage to be on the U.S. women’s gymnastics team.

“I think that would be so great,” Jeanette says. “I’ve been in Latino magazine and I think it would be great to be a role model.”

In 1997, Jeanette qualified for the U.S. World Championship team as an alternate. In 1999, she qualified as a full-fledged member of the U.S. World team, which finished a disappointing sixth.

Now it’s a week before the Olympic trials process begins.

Jeanette is battling a sore shoulder and a sore ankle. The shoulder is getting better. The ankle--”Jeanette tweaked it on a landing on her floor exercise last week,” Peters says--is still giving her problems. She grimaces on the balance beam, turns a little pale when she drops from the high bar. But there is no time for pain and no time to allow little injuries to get better.

This Olympic team will be chosen in a most subjective way.

First, the qualified gymnasts will compete July 26-29 at the U.S. Championships. The top 12 finishers will move on to the Olympics trials, Aug. 17-20 in Boston. A team of six competitors and an alternate is needed. But the scores from the national championships and the trials will not be the only determinants.

After the trials, Karolyi, who had retired from coaching but who was coaxed by U.S. Gymnastics to be a national team coordinator, and a committee of former gymnasts will have the option of substituting a gymnast who may not have scored high enough in the two competitions if they think a better team can be made.

In other words, Antolin could finish third or fourth, fifth or sixth after two grueling competitions but still not make the team if Karolyi and company think there is a better gymnast.

And Karolyi has become very familiar with the top gymnasts. Since January, between 12 and 20 girls have been invited to monthly camps at Karolyi’s ranch two hours outside of Houston. For a week each month the invitees and their coach lived in dorms, fought over the use of a phone, dodged snakes in the bathrooms and worked under the very critical eye of Karolyi.

“It’s been grueling,” Nola Antolin says. “It’s been a crazy year for Jeanette. Getting all the paperwork ready for college, for trials, traveling to competitions, trying to keep up with school and practice and then traveling to Houston every month. It’s been a very difficult year.”

But it would have been much worse not to have been invited.

And, Peters says, it has been good for Jeanette. She was able to gauge her competition every month. She could see where Vanessa Atler, Elise Ray, Alyssa Beckerman, Kristen Maloney were in training. She watched as several members of the 1996 gold medal-winning team have trickled back. Amy Chow, Dominique Moceanu, Shannon Miller, Dominique Dawes. They are all aiming to come back from retirement, from college, from marriage in Miller’s case, to challenge the Olympic rookies for one of the six precious spots.

“I told Jeanette she wouldn’t believe who would start coming from the woodwork,” Peters says, “and sure enough, everybody is coming back. It was good for Jeanette to see these people.”

And now there is only a week to go. Peters says that no U.S. gymnast has set herself far above the others. There are no sure things. Antolin, Peters thinks, could finish third or 10th after the two trials and neither would be a surprise.

“I can’t believe it’s so close,” Nola says.

“I can hardly wait to get started,” Jeanette says.

Jeanette has accepted a gymnastics scholarship to UCLA. No matter what happens in the next two months, whether she goes to Sydney or not, Jeanette will continue with gymnastics. From her sister, Jeanette learned how much fun it will be to have teammates. But first, for Katie, Jeanette would love to make it to the Olympics.

“Everybody always thought it would be Katie, not me,” Jeanette says, toweling off before getting her shoulder, her ankle and parts in between iced. “But now it’s me, and maybe I can do this for both of us.”

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com