Word: khorkina
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...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...
...course, she did, eventually, and that embarrassed her more. It was difficult to watch, and it should be pointed out quickly that it wasn't just Khorkina in tatters and tears, it was the entire Russian team. Everything was upside down in the land Down Under: Americans were 0-3 in softball, and Russians were falling off gym equipment. Leonid Arkaev, the Russian head coach and maker of champions since 1968, was flabbergasted. "I don't know how to prepare for failure, it's never happened to me," he said before the competition started. Indeed, Russian gymnastic teams hadn...