U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Decisions Come Down to Karolyi

BOSTON — Don’t try to figure out how the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team will be picked. Even the competitors aren’t sure.

The Olympic trials begin today and end Sunday. The men compete today and Saturday, the women on Friday and Sunday.

On Sunday, five minutes after the last woman has completed her last routine, NBC-TV wants the Olympians announced.

Jamie Dantzscher of San Dimas, who was third after the U.S. Nationals last month in St. Louis, which count for 40% of, um, not much, was asked how she would feel if she was still third Sunday after the two-part Olympic trials and didn’t make the team.

“But if you’re in the top three,” Dantzscher said, “you’re on the team.” No, Dantzscher was told, not necessarily.

While there are all sorts of mathematical calculations that can be done, the makeup of the women’s Olympic team will mostly come from the multilingual, inscrutable mind of team coordinator Bela Karolyi.

Because on Sunday night Karolyi and a committee of three other unnamed people can pick all of the women who finish in the top six after scores are combined from nationals and the Olympic trials. Or he could pick none of them. Or any combination.

Whatever Bela wants, Bela gets.

The men begin tonight, with multi-pierced, multi-tattooed Blaine Wilson the leader after the nationals and clearly the best U.S. hope to win an all-around individual medal in Sydney.

The men understand how their team will be chosen. The national championship scores count for 40%. The two-day Olympic trial scores count for 60%. The top four finishers go to the Olympics. Coach Peter Kormann and the men’s program committee will choose the other two team members and name two alternates.

Kelli Hill, coach of Elise Ray, who won the national championship, and Dominique Dawes, who was a member of the 1996 gold medal-winning U.S. team, wishes the women’s process was as clear.

“To me,” Hill said Wednesday, “it should be easy. The top six belong on the Olympic team. What the selection committee will do with it, I don’t know. They have created a procedure that could foster chaos. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

“If the top six don’t go, it will be terrible. It happened in 1992. Kim Kelly finished in the top five in both competitions and she was not put on the team. It was a tragedy. It ruined a little girl’s dream.”

Other coaches aren’t so antagonistic.

Mary Lee Tracy, coach of Cincinnati Gymnastics, has Alyssa Beckerman and Morgan White at the Olympic trials.

“I don’t know how this will work out,” Tracy said. “I’m sure Bela will want to have the best team possible. But it will be very difficult for a girl who finishes third or fourth or fifth and doesn’t make the team.”

Dominique Moceanu, another of Tracy’s gymnasts, withdrew from the trials Wednesday night because of a bone chip in her right knee.

Don Peters, who coaches Huntington Beach gymnast Jeanette Antolin at SCATS, backs Karolyi.

“Bela has proven himself the best coach the U.S. has had,” Peters said. “He isn’t coaching anybody individually. He has nothing to gain except by picking the best team possible.”

The way the Olympic team scores are tallied will be different this year. Only five women will compete on each of the four apparatus and only four scores will count.

“I don’t think there will be any controversy,” Karolyi said. “The athletes themselves will decide.”

But no decision will be final until Karolyi says it is final. And that’s final.