Word: goldings
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...Nemov's gold set Russians' expectations high for Svetlana Khorkina on the next night when the women were to compete for the all-around title. If they couldn't have the team golds, at least they had a crack at putting two Russians in the two top individual slots. But no. Svetlana shot over the vault and landed with a thump, shattering her mental preparation just before she went to the bars where, yet again, she wound up on the floor. She walked out of the gym and it seemed for moment that finding herself in 18th place...
...tears didn't come immediately, and not in public view. Svetlana Khorkina, Russia's best hope for an individual gold medal in gymnastics, had fallen. She slipped from the uneven bars an unbelievable second time in a week. She hadn't lost on that apparatus in seven years, and that streak included getting gold in Atlanta. Now, in Sydney, she walked off the mats, brushed past her coach - a man who had been with her since grammar school - and went to sit alone. She held back the tears as the sports paparazzi pressed in, waiting for her to crack...
...women got silver, a performance only slightly less humbling. When team leader Khorkina fell off the uneven bars for the first time in her disastrous week, the team dropped to second behind Romania. The Romanians have been winning World Championships of late, but they had never won a team gold in an unboycotted Olympics...
...Russians took it hard. This, succinctly, from the tight-lipped Arkaev: "We were expecting gold." But now he didn't have it - in the team competition, at least - and so he reset his sights on the individual all-around finals. Alexei Nemov, 24, the anchor of the Russian team, was the most decorated gymnast in Atlanta when he took home six medals. But he did not get the title of best male gymnast that year - it went China's Li Xiaoshuang. Like Khorkina, the glamorous Nemov was here for his final Olympics, but he almost didn't make...
...Nemov another reason to win. While he was training in Adelaide, his son Alexei was born in Moscow. Nemov had not even seen a photo of the baby when he took the floor and whirled from apparatus to apparatus, holding his first place lead throughout and finally taking the gold by a whisper from China's Yang Wei. "A lot of things helped me, but what was important is that now I know I have a son," he said afterward...