athletics - LA84 Foundation

The Unified Team gymnasts also won the
women’s team title 0.587 points ahead of
the Romanians, silver medallists as they had
been behind the USSR at all the Games since
1976 bar L.A. The USA women were 0.962
behind, the bronze their best team result
since 1912, apart from their 1984 silver.
Svetlana Boguinskaia of Belarus, Tatiana
Lyssenko of Ukraine and Rosza Galieva of
Uzbekhistan were the highest EUN scorers in
the team competition. The European champion
Tatiana Goutsu of Ukraine managed a
berth in the individual all-round as a replacement
for Galieva. Shannon Miller (USA) and
Lavinia Mitosovici (ROM) were looking good
as the only gymnasts to qualify for all four apparatus
finals. Yet before the final round, the
high degree of difficulty of Goutsou’s routines
had put her in the lead, followed by Milosovici,
Boguinskaia, 1988 bronze medallist,
Shannon Miller (USA) and Cristina Bontas of
Romania. The American’s last apparatus was
the vault, which she began and finished with
a double somersault, scoring a near-flawless
9.975. Goutsou produced a sure 9.5 on the
same apparatus to keep the gold by 0.012
points. Nineteen-year-old Boguinskaia gave
an elegant and well-executed performance on
the beam, but was not technically daring
enough to keep the bronze, which was Milosovici’s.
The all-round world champion Kim
Zmeskal, well off form and balance at the
Games, finished tenth, 0.325 points away
from Goutsou, whose place on the podium
had once seemed reserved for her.
It seemed as ii the days of tens had gone.
But in the individual competition, two gymnasts
reached perfection, Milosovici, with a
twisting, somersaulting routine on the floor
and Li Lu of China, weightless and
astonishing on the asymmetric bars. Milosovici
tied 9.925 with Henrietta Onodi of Hungary
on the vault. Lyssenko won the beam, Lu
tying Miller for silver. Miller could only repeat
her all-round silver on the beam, tying with
Lu, and take two bronzes on the asymmetric
bars. Goutsou had a silver on the asymmetric
bars, a tied bronze on the floor.
Age seemed to have more merit in the
rhythmic gymnastics competition in the Palau
d’Esports, when the oldest competitor, 20 year
old Alexandra Timoshenko of Ukraine, who
had dominated the discipline for the past few
years, topped three of the four disciplines,
rope, hoop and club, to win the single all-
round competition. Carolina Pascual of Spain
produced the best performance with the ball
for the silver, leaving a disappointed Oksana
Skaldina of Ukraine with the bronze. Pascual’s
medal was unique in Spanish gymnastics,
which also produced the runner-up for
the bronze, Carmen Acedo. The Spaniards
displaced the Bulgarians, usually strong in the
sport, but left them out of the medals after errors
by Maria Petova and Diana Popova.
* Gymnastique rythmique
Rhythmic gymnastics
Gimnasia rítmica
1. Alexandra Timoshenko (UKR)
2. Carolina Pascual Garcia (ESP)
3. Oksana Skaldina (UKR)
4. Carmen Acedo Jorge (ESP)
5. Marta Dimitrova Petrova (BUL)
6. Irina Deleanu (ROM)
7. Joanna Bodak (POL)
8. Lenka Oulehlova (TCH)
59.037
58.100
57.912
57.225
57.087
56.612
56.475
56.137
Alexandra Timoshenko.
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