Word: gymnastic
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...essay on Nadia Comeneci is more devastating. In a series of depressing interviews, the Rumanian gymnast bosses waiters at restaurants, lies to Harrison about her collaboration with the murderous dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and periodically leaves the table to vomit up the large quantities of food she stuffs into her mouth...
...income for a quarter-century. Says a prominent Chinese sports journalist: "Fu Mingxia is a money tree for her family." Still, that Olympic bonus is less than a fifth of what the Soviet Union offered athletes for gold at Seoul -- and about one-third of 1% of what American gymnast Mary Lou Retton earned from capitalist sources after her Olympic heyday...
...that the popular Li Jing -- China's premier gymnast -- is a stuffed shirt. "Gymnasts only look big because TV screens are so small," he says with a wink. Among his teammates, he's the life of the party. "Li Jing is always a joker," says his coach Zhang Jian. "Except, of course, during competition, when it counts...
...former role as team baby and mascot has been taken over by this year's huggable 16-year-old, Nadia Anita Nall, a high school junior from suburban Baltimore. Nall's first name was bestowed in honor of Nadia Comaneci, who won Olympic gold as a gymnast in 1976 while Nall's father watched TV awaiting her birth. But the name was dropped from family usage in favor of Anita. So too, when she was seven, was her seemingly foreordained pursuit of gymnastics. She focused on swimming, set age-group records by 12 and notched an adult American record...
...championships. He has dominated the sport since -- winning the 1988 Olympic gold, taking 23 of the 25 meets he entered last year, and arcing 20 ft. or better four times. With his speed (10.2 sec. in the 100 m) and dazzling strength (his wedge-shaped upper body resembles a gymnast's), the 176-lb. Bubka is able to use a pole designed for someone weighing 44 lbs. more, allowing him extra spring. Sponsors reportedly give him as much as $25,000 to make an appearance, while Nike pays every time he sets a new world record...