A healthy alternative

15-year-old worldbeater Chellsie Memmel lifts United States women

By John Powers Globe Staff, 8/19/2003

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Chellsie Memmel was in Santo Domingo, flipping and flying in the outdoor sauna that was the Pan American Games, when she got the call. How would she like to come straight to the World Gymnastics Championships?

"When I found out I'd be on the team it was such a shock, it took like an hour for it to sink in," said Memmel, who replaced flu-stricken Ashley Postell. "And when I found out I was competing, it was even a bigger shock."

Not just competing, but competing in all four events and going up first on three. No problem. Memmel already had a star-spangled leotard and she was still in peak form.

So she walked onto the floor of Arrowhead Pond Sunday night and hit all four routines to keep the depleted American squad in medal contention, outpointing defending all-around champion Svetlana Khorkina of Russia in the bargain.

"Chellsie did awesome," saluted Tasha Schwikert, the squad's grande dame. "I was so amazed. She was so focused, I was in awe."

If the face of US women's gymnastics used to be a Mary Lou Retton, a Kim Zmeskal, a Shannon Miller, it's now the 15-year-old Memmel, who comes tumbling out of the shadows and into the spotlight and doesn't miss a beat.

"Look at her," marveled Miller, who anchored the Magnificent 7 to their Olympic gold medal in Atlanta seven years ago. "She wasn't even an alternate before. Now she's in the No. 1 spot."

It's been the rookies and reserves saving the Americans, who'd been left for dead after losing their best beamer and vaulter when Postell took to a sickbed and Annia Hatch tore up a knee in practice.

"We can do this," Schwikert told her spooked teammates on the eve of the qualifying round. "We're going to be fine. We're going to do this for Ashley and Annia."

Even though Schwikert, the team's only Olympian, missed on three of her routines ("I had some uncharacteristic things happen") and national champ Courtney Kupets missed making the all-around, the US still was sitting third, ahead of Russia and behind China and seven-time victor Romania.

And yet, the Americans weren't happy about it."Encouraged? Not so encouraged," said team coordinator Martha Karolyi, after she'd watched her charges make a few unfortunate pratfalls on beam and floor.

Injuries and inexperience aside, the fact is that the US camp had been planning on a golden week here.

"Our girls are ready to make a very loud and clear statement to the world," USA Gymnastics president Bob Colarossi declared when the squad was announced last month.

Postell had won the beam and Kupets the uneven bars at last year's world apparatus championships, and Hatch, the 25-year-old Cuban emigre, had an excellent chance to take the vault here.

"This is the first time that I can confidently say that the American team can win this competition," said Karolyi's husband Bela, who has been the mustachioed eminence of American gymnastics for more than two decades.

But when Hatch and Postell were scratched, the young squad was rattled.

"So I told them about 1979 in Fort Worth, when we lost Nadia [Comaneci] just before warmups with an infected hand," said Martha Karolyi, who coached that Romanian team with Bela.

The Romanians rallied around Comaneci, who did her one routine, on beam, with one hand, and won their first title. The Americans have no Nadia here, but they do have a bunch of mid-teens like Memmel and fellow 15-year-olds Carly Patterson and Hollie Vise who are ready to step in and step up when the green light goes on.

Three years ago in Sydney, where the US women missed the Olympic medal stand for the first time since 1976, the team was so thin that Dominique Dawes and Amy Chow were able to come out of retirement and make the roster. Now the program goes two dozen deep.

"It's hard enough to make this team," said Colarossi. "It's even harder to stay on it."

The Americans could have fielded a strong entry here with gymnasts who were hurt or left off the roster, like world medalists Samantha Sheehan, Tabitha Yim, and Katie Heenan. As it is, Patterson, Vise, and Terin Humphrey all could have made the last Olympic team had they been old enough.

"We have a great system, a fully-developed pipeline that's churning out athletes and a new crop of kids every year," said Colarossi, who was Massachusetts Sports Partnership president before he signed on with the federation five years ago.

What the Americans also have now is what they call a "decentralized/centralized" training system, which lets the national teamers train with their club coaches but brings them together at the Karolyis' Houston ranch for a week each month for high-level work and team-building.

The concept is a compromise between what the Europeans and Asians have always done and what can work in the States.

"For years, we tried to copy Russia, Romania, and China," said Colarossi. Now, USA Gymnastics is doing it the American way and the team is back in the medals.

"The American team has made a big step forward," conceded longtime Russian coach Leonid Arkayev, whose Olympic and world silver medalists finished 2 points behind the hosts in the prelims.

Their rivals knew the Yanks would be contenders, especially in their own building. What surprised them was the depth of the US bench. Both Memmel and Patterson reached Friday's all-around and Memmel qualified for this weekend's event finals on bars and beam.

"After injury, they found [good] gymnasts to replace," said Romanian coach Octavian Belu, whose young team will be gunning for a sixth straight team title. "Why they didn't have [Memmel] on the team [originally], I don't know."

Memmel, whose Wisconsin hometown of West Allis is better known for speedskating, was only 10th at the national championships. But these days, the difference between 10th and first on a US team is smaller than it's ever been. "You can't put a piece of paper in between them, they're so close," reckoned Colarossi.

Memmel may have been in the middle of the pack at the US Championships, but she won the all-around at the Pan Am Games. When Hatch went down the day before the prelims, the federation plugged in the 17-year-old Humphrey, who'd finished in the top dozen in two world apparatus events.

That's how the Romanians have done it since the '70s, when Karolyi could choose his Olympic team by pointing at it ("You, you, you, you, you, you") during practice. Now, the Americans can play the numbers game, too, all the way to Athens next summer.

"If you'd asked me a year ago who would be on the team right now, I couldn't tell you," said Colarossi. "If you ask me about next year, I still can't tell you."