It’s art and sports

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NEW WAVERLY, Texas -- I stayed awake for a long time last night, contemplating the emotionless face of 15-year-old Ivana Hong.

Last summer, she was a bubbly rookie who withstood fiercely anti-American boos during the Pan-American Games in Brazil as she and her U.S. teammates won gold while having garbage thrown their way.

Hong was the free-spirited baby sister on the world championship team who went home with a team gold medal and instructions to up her difficulty and her ‘grinability.’

National team coordinator Martha Karolyi said that she wanted more ‘sturdiness’ from Hong, as well as more dramatic flair -- and maybe a kiddie smile that would indicate joy was part of the process.

Instead Hong seemed to sink within herself all during this Olympic selection process. She seemed to shrink from taking chances, doing safer, smaller tricks when Karolyi was crying out that Hong suck it up and add another twist or exta twirl.

Even Hong’s coach, Al Fong, lamented Saturday night that had Hong done the high-flying, solidly landed warm-up vault when it mattered, in the competition, Hong might have made the Olympic team.

‘But you don’t win in warm-ups,’ Fong said. ‘You win in competition. You have to do it. Ivana didn’t do it.’

Those words seemed harsh from the coach of a 15-year-old who is still discovering her own personality. And Ivana, who moved from Laguna Hills to train with Fong in Missouri, was stoic but dry-eyed when she said it was hard to imagine still doing this four years from now.

Hong would only be 19, younger than two members of this Olympics team, but four years of living a divided life -- her mother and siblings stay in Missouri while her father runs a company in Laguna Hills -- is not a happy prospect.

If the process seems cruel -- Shayla Worley and Mattie Larson suffered leg fractures during the final part of this two-month ordeal -- it is also necessary.

‘It really matters who is doing best at the end, not the beginning,’ said 16-year-old Bridget Sloan, who had started from behind. She needed arthroscopic surgery on her left knee in March and had to move relentlessly forward.

And, sure enough, Sloan improved slowly through nationals and the Olympic trials. She arrived for this final test at the Karolyi ranch wearing a small band underneath her left knee and reveling in landing jumps and flips without any jolts of pain.

‘It doesn’t hurt,’ Sloan said Friday. ‘I can do all my tricks.’ She did most of them, not always perfectly, but with a precise line of pointed fingers and toes and a graceful strength that made Karolyi smile -- even though Sloan always frowned through routines.

I saw Jana Bieger in tears after she made the same mistake two nights in a row on the uneven bars release move. I watched her melt in a corner as she tried to gather her fading emotional reserves -- because she knew, just knew, team selectors were losing faith in her mental sturdiness.

It was difficult to watch.

But the clinical Karolyi had made her point. She needed to pick gymnasts who were on an upward curve as far as physical fitness and mental solidity.

Sloan did that. Bieger and Hong didn’t.

This team will stand out on the balance beam. Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin and Alicia Sacramone are all capable of putting out scores of 16.200 or higher, and on floor exercise, Johnson and Sacramone can crack 16 and Liukin can get close.

Where Karolyi is looking for help is on uneven bars and vault.

The Chinese have at least two girls, maybe three, who can post scores of 17 or higher. Only one American, Liukin, has done that, and she hasn’t done it in a month. Chellsie Memmel has a set that can score around 16.200 or even 16.300. Johnson, at her best, might score a 15.900.

If Bieger hadn’t fallen twice here, she would have scored 15.800s. Instead she was at 15 and missing confidence in her release moves.

The U.S. also needs a third strong vaulter. Sacramone and Johnson will give the U.S. scores right around 16 or a little higher. Hong could have earned her team spot if she had landed her vault that is beautiful and high in the air.

As her knee improved, Sloan’s vaults became more reliable and more difficult and Karolyi said she expected them to keep getting better.

And if one wants to criticize the length of this process and the physical toll it took -- remember the broken bones suffered by Worley and Larson -- it is imperative the U.S. send athletes who can withstand the physical pounding.

Because the Chinese are likely going to offer younger, smaller girls.

Mary Lou Retton said this after watching video of the Chinese uneven bar routines: ‘The girls are so little, so young and they go around, whoosh, whoosh, so fast and so tight and do so many tricks, it’s amazing.’

Bela Karolyi, Martha’s husband and the coach of Retton, Nadia Comaneci, Kim Zmeskal and Kerri Strug, makes the point often that he sees too many baby teeth in Chinese gymnasts. His point is that the Chinese might be taking advantage of an age rule that requires Olympians to turn 16 during an Olympic year.

Karolyi muses that it might be easy to do little wonders with birth certificates in a communist country. Karolyi probably knows how this could work better than most since he was a coach in Romania.

The battle for gold between the U.S. and China will be both about mental strength and big tricks. The Chinese are criticized for performing skills that may score high but also may be very difficult and often result in big falls.

The Americans prefer a little more safety. They want girls staying upright, not letting go of release moves. But they also want girls who act full of confidence, something at which Hong was failing.

When Sacramone does a come-hither hip swivel on her floor exercise, it is as much to score charm points with the judges as it is to demonstrate a skill.

That is what Karolyi said the U.S. girls need to do. They need to be more like Johnson on the balance beam. When Johnson is on that 4-inch-wide apparatus, there is no surprise when she lands a triple tumbling pass. She expects to hit that and score a 16.300.

-- Diane Pucin

Top photo: Ivana Hong on the vault runway during a June competition in Boston. Credit: Stew Milne/US Presswire

First insert: Shayla Worley grabs on to the uneven bars during a June competition in Philadelphia. Credit: Rob Carr/Associated Press

Second insert: Martha Karolyi watches her team during a June competition in Boston. Credit: Stew Milne/US Presswire