A silver lining in this deep pool
Among them, they already have enough gold and silver to open their own
The beauty of US women's gymnastics this year, and the quandary for the selectors, is that they have too many golden girls and too few places on the Olympic team. "You'd think that since they were already world champions, it would make sense for them to be on the team," said Sacramone, the Winchester dynamo who captained the 2007 squad.
Not this year. At least nine athletes have a legitimate shot at the six spots for Beijing and everyone at the national championships, which began last night at BU's Agganis Arena, knows that a couple of mistakes at the wrong time - or one dislocated pinkie finger - can make the difference between competing in the Games and watching them from the sofa.
This is the way it used to be for the Soviet men and the Romanian women and the way it still is for the Chinese men. Put a dozen gymnasts on the podium and whichever six you pick can get you a medal. This is the way it has been for the US women ever since the 2003 world meet in Anaheim, Calif., when three of their top five went down and the Americans still won the gold medal.
Since then, the US has been the world's deepest team, two or three strong on every apparatus. The Chinese, Russians, and Romanians still are a match for them six on six, but the Yanks can play mix-and-match better than anyone.
The US has had four world champions in the all-around and two are here (incumbent Shawn Johnson and Memmel) as are two former silver medalists in Liukin and Jana Bieger. But in this sport, perhaps more than any other, a gilded résumé means little.
Bieger won three silver medals at the 2006 world meet, hurt her ankle last year, and didn't make the team. She's here for another go this week, but she understands that team coordinator Martha Karolyi won't be giving her carryover credit. "She looks at everything," said Bieger, a German emigre whose mother competed in the Olympics, "but she can't look at everything that happened in the past."
Memmel, one of the alternates who stepped up in 2003, is as talented as any gymnast in US history. But she tore up her shoulder two years ago and is competing in her first full major meet since.
"You don't get the benefit of the doubt for anything you've done in the past," said Memmel, who's sitting third behind Johnson and Liukin going into tomorrow afternoon's finale. "You still have to prove what you can do right now."
The nationals are just one piece of the five-ringed puzzle. Though only the top 12 overall finishers are guaranteed to advance to Philadelphia for the Olympic trials two weeks from now, the selectors can invite as many as they please. "We don't want to cut off the chances of any girl," said Karolyi, "so we will take more for the trials and more for the [Houston] training camp."
The Games aren't until August, which is a century from now according to a gymnastics timeline. Some top contenders like world-teamer Shayla Worley, who scratched here because she needs more time to recover from a back injury, aren't yet fit. Others, like 2007 alternate Bridget Sloan, aren't doing the full menu here. Still others, like Sacramone, hadn't been in a major meet for months.
The main objective for being here, other than winning the domestic title, is to show that you're ready for the big stage without knocking yourself off of it with a random injury. "You've got to weigh the good and the bad and not take any risks that are too major," said Sacramone, who was 18th after last night because she bypassed the uneven bars to focus on the specialties that are her ticket to Olympus.
Johnson would love to keep her title, but not if it might put her in traction. This year, she said, nationals are simply a test drive. "Doing the smart thing is the most important thing because we're two months away from the Olympics," she said. "If winning would be something that would put you at risk . . ."
Olympic champion Paul Hamm, who cruised through the first day of the men's nationals in Houston, broke a bone in his right ring finger on his last event and won't be ready for the trials. If he's put directly on the team, and it's all but certain he will be, it'll be because of his golden transcript and because he'll be ready to go all-out by Games time.
That's why the women's selectors want to look at as many gymnasts for as long as they can. No doubt, somebody with a fistful of medals won't be chosen because she wasn't consistent in camp or because a nagging injury never came around or because a bone cracked or a muscle tore at the worst possible time.
"You want to see who is the best prepared at the moment," said Karolyi. When her husband, Bela, coached Romania back in the Nadia days, he chose his Olympic team by pointing at them: "You . . . you . . . you . . . you . . . you . . . you." The American style isn't quite as subjective, but the philosophy is the same. Today is the only day there is.
