Word: karolyis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...team has a leader, and that's Elise Ray." With those words, the voluble Bela Karolyi, national women's team coordinator and the man behind the Magnificent Seven gold-medal winners of the 1996 Olympic Games, unofficially crowned America's next darling of the mats. It was the verbal equivalent of one of his trademark bear hugs. "I'm not afraid of taking on that role," Ray said last week after earning her ticket to Sydney by accumulating the highest score in four qualifying meets...
...expect a waiflike Nadia Comaneci, or a baby-faced Dominique Moceanu. At 18, Ray is the new face-and body-of women's gymnastics: older, wiser and, in Karolyi's words, "sturdier." Because gymnasts must now be in their 16th year to be able to compete, they're more likely to be heading to college than high school, and physically, they're better representatives of a women's rather than a girls' sport...
...parents: Your mom, who studiously avoids the spotlight, appears to be a lovely woman. (And that's not coincidental.) Your dad, on the other hand, reminds us all a little bit too much of Bela Karolyi. Whenever old Earl appears on a talk show, praising you to the skies and harping over his overwhelming influence on your game, I half expect him to launch into proud reminiscences of Kerri Strug's bone-crunching, gold-medal-winning vault at the '96 Olympic Games. There's something about your dad that makes me nervous. Nothing I can put my finger on - just...