Word: gymnastically
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...close look at the Rumanians' medals, and told U.S. Women's Coach Don Peters, "Theirs are shinier than ours." Two nights later, everything that glittered was around Retton's neck. She won the gold medal in the all-around championship, the most coveted prize in gymnastics, since it marks the winner as the finest gymnast in the world. It is the crown Nadia Comaneci once wore, and Lyudmila Tourischeva, and which Olga Korbut, for all her charm, was too limited an athlete to achieve. Retton sealed her claim to it in the most dramatic duel...
...this unforgiving apparatus was added the obligatory flap over judging, without which no gymnastics meet would be complete. Like figure skating, gymnastics is a subjective sport: performance is in the eyes of the judges beholding it. National loyalties and geopolitical considerations being what they are, the beholder can cast a blind or a jaundiced eye, or an indulgent one, depending upon where the gymnast is from. During the compulsory exercises on the balance beam, U.S. Coach Peters lodged four protests over marks given to the Americans by Rumanian Judge Julia Roterescu. But having gone 4 for 6 in the complaint...
...America's top women, they showed that they can now hold their own with anyone in the world. That includes the absent Soviets, who defeated the Rumanians in the 1983 world championships and whose top gymnast, Natalia Yurtchenko, would have been a favored contender for individual honors in these Olympics. Julianne McNamara is the best there is on the uneven bars. Her line is as perfect as a ballerina's, and she flows so lightly from one bar to the next, one movement to another, that the bars sing for her. She got a 10 to prove...
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...
...only performed risky maneuvers flawlessly but managed to make her narrow ground seem like a stage for the Bolshoi Ballet. At one point she rolled off four consecutive backward handsprings, one more than the beam seems capable of containing and two more than any other gymnast tried. Retton's performance on the uneven bars, on the other hand, was, for her, mediocre. The judges gave her a 9.85, and the score was tied...