Word: all-around
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...guts beat grace. Thursday night at Athens' Olympic Indoor Hall, Carly Patterson bounced back from a klutzy performance in the team event and pranced, pirouetted and double-piked her way to gold in gymnastics' marquee event, the women's individual all-around competition. The 16-year-old pocket dynamo from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, became the first American woman to claim the medal since Mary Lou Retton in 1984. "You dream about this your whole life," she marveled afterwards. "Then you win the gold medal." Or you dream about it your whole life, then lose. That's what happened to Patterson...
PAUL HAMM AGE 21 HOMETOWN Waukesha, Wis. EVENT Gymnastics THE DRAMA Hamm won the world all-around title in 2003, the first U.S. man to do so. His strength is the high bar--he's the only gymnast who will do three release moves in a row off that apparatus in Athens. THE COMPETITION The big challenge now comes from Asia, not Eastern Europe. China is intent on retaining its Olympic team title, and in the race for all-around champ, Hamm will have to repeat his historic feat and outscore Yang Wei of China and Hiroyuki Tomita of Japan...
CARLY PATTERSON AGE 16 HOMETOWN Baton Rouge, La. EVENT Gymnastics THE DRAMA The world's No. 2 in the all-around competition, she risks the most difficult dismount from the balance beam of any competitor: a round off back handspring double Arabian. THE COMPETITION It's formidable but not invincible. In the team contest, the U.S. must vault past the solid Romanian and Chinese squads. For the individual all-around title, Patterson faces three-time world champion Svetlana Khorkina of Russia and newcomer Daniela Sofronie of Romania...
...there's Gergely Kiss, 26, Hungary's top scorer in 2000, with 14 goals in eight games and hat tricks in both the semifinal and final, and captain Tibor Benedek, 32, a lefty who scored four times in the Sydney final and remains one of the team's strongest all-around players. But the key is Kásás, a versatile, 6-ft.-7-in. right-hander who is the team's fastest swimmer and perhaps the finest distance shooter in the world. If the two-time world player of the year finds top form in Athens, Hungary...
...dates from the communist era and continues to produce top gymnasts with only a fraction of the resources of big rivals such as the U.S. and China. The past four years have been particularly rough for national coach Octavian Belu and his team. Andreea Raducan was stripped of her all-around gold at the Olympics in Sydney after testing positive for pseudoephedrine. Over the next four years, the national team had to be rebuilt twice due to untimely departures of top talent. Belu had to fend off accusations in the Romanian press that the strict regime at Deva tipped over...