Word: ecaterina
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...chances of the veteran Soviet Elena Shushunova, 19, scoffing, "She's used up like old battery." But her dry cells powered the Olympics with regular flashes of just slightly imperfect 10s, including a necessary one against Rumania's Daniela Silivas that brought back Mary Lou Retton and little Ecaterina Szabo from 1984. Puberty and Big Macs have reportedly ganged up on Szabo this year. Four years later, it is a rare Shirley Temple who doesn't come back as Shelley Winters...
...picture-memory of the spectators develops into a composite of both images-the terrific and the terrible-much more touching as an entry than either could be individually. The happiest circumstance, of course, is when they take turns. First U.S. Gymnast Mary Lou Retton rejoiced as Rumania's Ecaterina Szabo sighed, then a couple of days later Ecaterina laughed and Mary Lou made a petulant face. The athletic world, like the real world, is seldom so equitable. Fairness is not really the essence of sport...
During the women's gymnastics, the crowd responded to the pyrotechnics of Ecaterina Szabo's team with a decibel level nearly as high as that accorded the U.S.'s own Mary Lou Retton. The spectators even booed marks they did not consider high enough for the East bloc visitors. Such evenhandedness was not lost on those Rumanians who had competed in 1980 in Moscow, where Soviet crowds applauded loudly for their own performers but were at best lukewarm to other competitors, even when they excelled...
...resilient child and a killer competitor of 16, whose 92 Ibs. of forthright chunkiness rises scarcely 4 ft. 9 in. from the preposterous base of a pair of size3 feet. Among her best reflexes is a snappy smile, but the hunter's look with which she fixed Rumanian Ecaterina Szabo, 17, was memorable too as fortune started Szabo off on her best apparatus and Retton on her worst. They proceeded inversely until Szabo dismounted the parallel bars with relief and Retton came to the vaulting horse, her pet pony. A loud bear, Bela Karolyi, the defector who instructed Comaneci...
Thanks to such razzle-dazzle, Retton led the field at the beginning of the all-around competition with a cumulative score of 39.525 points. Just behind her, with 39.375, was Rumania's leading gymnast, Ecaterina Szabo, 17, a smoothly solid performer who rarely makes mistakes. Tied for third place were another Rumanian, Laura Cutina, 16, and McNamara, with...