Gymnastics Championships a Long Time Coming

Peter Vidmar didn’t do somersaults when he learned last week that the 2003 World Gymnastics Championships had been moved from Indianapolis to the Arrowhead Pond. But he could have--and added 1 1/2 twists.

Vidmar, a standout at UCLA and captain of the gold medal-winning 1984 U.S. men’s Olympic gymnastics team, is a board member of USA Gymnastics and will be part of the local organizing committee for the world championships. As far as he’s concerned, having the competition here is long overdue.

“The last major international gymnastics event here was the Olympic Games in 1984, and we have probably more gymnastics clubs in the area than any part of the country,” said Vidmar, also part of the group trying to bring the 2012 Olympics to Los Angeles.

“There’s more than 100 clubs here and we feel we deserve this and can support it. As a result, we have incentive to make it a great event. . . . This will have a tremendous amount of significance . . . because this qualifies teams to compete at the Olympics. Only the top 12 teams will make it, and this will decide who competes in Athens.”

The event will bring about 1,200 athletes to the area, plus coaches, officials and fans.

David Simon, president of the Los Angeles Sports Council--which has worked with many local groups to bid for and stage national and international sports events--said the economic impact on the area is difficult to estimate. However, he said studies found the 1991 World Gymnastics Championships had an economic impact of $37 million on the host city, Indianapolis, and that could increase by 20% or more.

“They came here because USA Gymnastics knows there’s a large gymnastics community here and there’s pent-up demand,” Simon said. “Doing it in August is ideal. It’s a great time to get families.”

Simon had helped prepare a bid for the event, only to see Indianapolis win. So when he got a phone call a few weeks ago from a USA Gymnastics official asking if he was still interested, he was surprised.

“I said, ‘What are we talking about, 2015?’ ” he said.

He was then told scheduling conflicts had forced Indianapolis to back out. Ten days of intense negotiations ended with an agreement to stage the competition at the Pond Aug. 16-24, although those dates might change slightly.

“A month ago, we didn’t even know this was a possibility,” Simon said. “We’re elated.”

The gymnastics event is another jewel in a string of elite events the Sports Council has secured or is pursuing.

It begins with the U.S. figure skating championships in January at Staples Center and the Sports Arena. The World Gymnastics Championships follow in 2003, and the Sports Council has bids in for the World Swimming and Diving Championships in 2005. It also has bid for Olympic trials in several sports, among them the 2004 U.S. gymnastics trials, although holding the previous year’s world competition might knock that out.

Other coming events nurtured by the Sports Council include the L.A. Triathlon, which debuted last year and will be held again Sept. 9; the NCAA women’s volleyball championships, to be held in Long Beach in 2004, and a bid to hold the 2012 Olympics.

“Rarely do you get a chance to bid for a world championship, and all of a sudden, one dropped in our laps, and another is within our grasp,” Simon said. “It’s great for the city and the whole area.”

Get With the Program

Four-time world figure skating champion Michelle Kwan will begin her Olympic season by competing at the Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, where she will debut the long program she plans to use at the Salt Lake City Games.

Kwan, a five-time U.S. champion, agreed to defend her Goodwill Games title because the event’s scheduling--Aug. 29-Sept. 9--gives her extra time to refine the routine she hopes will bring her Olympic gold.

“Usually, my first competition isn’t until October, at Skate America,” the 20-year-old Torrance native said. “This is a month earlier, and it will be good to get feedback from everybody on how they like the music and get feedback from the audience if I need to make adjustments.”

Kwan said she and her coach, Frank Carroll, have worked on the new program with choreographer Sarah Kawahara, instead of her longtime choreographer, Lori Nichol. Nichol lives in Toronto and Kwan trains in El Segundo, complicating the logistics of working together.

“I love Lori,” Kwan said. “It’s just really hard because of the distance.”

She described the new program as “unique and different than what I’ve done before,” and said she will skate as a character. She hasn’t chosen a short program yet.

“It’s very important that this program is polished,” Kwan said. “I’m very close to Frank and he knows what I’m capable of doing. . . . What Frank and I have been talking about is doing new movements. I don’t want it to be like, ‘I know what she’s going to do next.’ I want it to be, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen her do that.’ ”

Kawahara has worked with many elite skaters and did choreography for the “Stars on Ice” show.

The Goodwill Games’ figure skating competition will be Sept. 5-8.

Everybody in the Pool

It was hardly consolation for a bitter loss in the gold-medal game at Sydney, but Guy Baker, coach of the U.S. women’s national water polo team, was pleased with his team’s triumph at the Thetis Cup last week in Greece.

“I was surprised we won the tournament. I didn’t anticipate that happening,” said Baker, who resigned as coach of the UCLA men’s team to become the first full-time coach of the women’s national team.

Eleven of 14 players from the Sydney silver-medal squad have returned. Veteran Maureen O’Toole retired, Ellen Estes is taking a year off and Robin Beauregard of Huntington Beach was finishing classes at UCLA and recovering from an injured elbow. That gave Baker a chance to work some new players into the lineup in Greece and later last week at the Canada Cup in Montreal, where the U.S. lost to Australia, 14-8, in Sunday’s championship game. By next month’s world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, he should have a firm idea of the team’s strengths.

“It wasn’t tough to motivate this group,” he said. “We’ve emphasized this is a new journey. We mentioned during our first meeting about the Olympics and how far we’ve come in a short time, but we are looking ahead.”

His new, full-time status gave Baker time to conduct eight player identification tryouts around the country and spend more time working at the team’s Los Alamitos training base. Los Alamitos will be the site of the Holiday Cup tournament, July 4-8.

Here and There

Delighted with the success of the first EBay auction of prime tickets for showcase events, officials of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee put another batch up for bid. Among them are tickets for men’s downhill skiing and front-row seats for women’s figure skating short program. The auctions end Thursday and can be accessed through EBay or the SLOC Web site,

https://saltlake2002.com.

Tickets for the first two rows at the 2002 U.S. figure skating championships, Jan. 6-13 at Staples Center, have sold out for the competition and the exhibition of champions. Event suites are sold out as well. However, ABC is expected to return up to half of the 1,800 tickets set aside for its camera positions, and those seats will be put up for sale. Updates are available through an electronic newsletter at the event’s Web site, https://la2002.com.

Ryan Hall of Big Bear ran the third-fastest 1,500 by a high school runner, 3:42.70, to finish fifth at the Peregrine Systems U.S. Open on Saturday at Palo Alto. Only Jim Ryun, who held the high school mile record for 36 years, and Alan Webb, who broke Ryun’s record last month, have recorded faster 1,500 times as high schoolers. . . . At the same meet, John Godina of Northridge won the shotput with a throw of 72 feet 1/4 inch (21.95 meters), the second-longest in the world this year.

World pole vault record holder Stacy Dragila, who bettered her own mark with a jump of 15 feet, 9 1/4 inches Saturday night at Palo Alto, opposes a proposal by the International Amateur Athletic Federation to cut the number of attempts from three to two. “I think there are other things we can do to make the competition go a little faster,” she said. “Taking away the third attempt--that may be asking a little too much.”

Only 242 days until the Salt Lake City Olympic Games.