Word: karolyis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...which Moceanu is well suited. Though just 4 ft. 6 1/2 in. and a slight 72 lbs., Moceanu is a fetching gamine who can ignite an arena with her Audrey Hepburn-like looks and contagious ebullience. "Dominique's best point is her personality," says her coach, the legendary Bela Karolyi, who trained both Comaneci and Retton. "Joking. Talking. Kidding. That will be her trademark...
...possible 10 for a lukewarm compulsory floor exercise, Moceanu earned a 9.8 for a routine that ignited the crowd. Sniffed one judge: "If Chow got a 9.425, Moceanu deserved an 11." But in the interest of creating a cohesive U.S. team, even flamboyant rival coaches Steve Nunno and Bela Karolyi kept their egos somewhat in check. Nunno, who in '92 boasted, "Bela is an '80s coach; I'm a '90s coach," last week publicly welcomed Karolyi back to the sport after a two-year retirement with the words "Bela will always be the leader...
While excellence was evident on the U.S. women's team, a sense of unity was not. Certainly it didn't help that the six competitors and one alternate were thrown together only one month earlier. It helped even less that head coach Bela Karolyi and the other U.S. coaches bickered all the way to Barcelona. "The coaches hate each other," said someone close to the team. "Sometimes the girls feel as if they can't talk to each other because their coach will get upset." Word leaked out of the Olympic Village that the gymnasts were under strict regulations...
...team fair and square, was dropped from the squad by the American coaches to make room for another athlete they felt had greater potential. Kelly considered filing suit, then opted instead to show up in Barcelona, her presence a quiet rebuke of a selection process that even Karolyi denounces as "ugly...
...triumph rekindled speculation about her age. The controversy began at the Stuttgart world championships, where she listed her birth date as Feb. 15, 1975, which met by 46 days the competitive minimum of 15. "Nonsense," insists Bela Karolyi, the U.S. trainer, who admits to faking birth dates in his native Romania to allow underage gymnasts to perform. As evidence, Karolyi points out the missing front tooth in Kim's engaging smile. "I lost it when I hit the bar in practice," explains Kim. "But she was missing two in Stuttgart," replies Karolyi. "One grew in." Whatever her age, her maturity...