Word: leaping
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...limits of possibility into bowknots and arrowed into the pool with only the most demure of splashes, Louganis then shows how it should be done. He dives last in each round because he qualifies in first place. Because he can jump higher than any other diver (his vertical leap has been measured at 33 in.), he hangs in the air longer before he begins to fall toward the water. Quickness is the special talent of divers; their spins and somersaults are conjuring tricks that confuse the eye. Louganis alone is able to go beyond such dazzle to a majestic slowness...
Retton, by contrast, is a 4-ft. 9-in. study in power, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound and do a full-twisting layout double Tsukahara (a maneuver only a few men in the world can perform) while she is at it. On the vault, she earned a 10 with that trick, which calls for pouncing onto the vault, then pushing into the stratosphere with her arms and twisting 360° while doing a double somersault with her body perfectly straight...
Retton had her turn on the mat next. Nowhere is the difference in the two performers' styles more apparent. If Szabo is European velvet, Retton is muscular American brashness. No one can generate her speed or leap to her heights; she can do numbers in floor exercises known only to men. On her first tumbling run, she pounded out enough time in the air to pull off a layout double back somersault, and exploded into a dazzling smile. It did not dim for the rest of her routine. When she landed her final twisting somersault, she had notched...
Television edits ruthlessly: cameras record every leap and thrust, but only one event at a time shows up in the living room. The gymnastics just ended; the sprinters are on; next is volleyball. That serial focus is misleading, TV's accommodation to our one-track minds. For the Olympics are happening all at once and all over the place. Only the epicenter is in Los Angeles. A slick L.A. cheer infuses the whole-banners the color of coral, the velodrome's playful curves-but not even the city's flabbergasting sprawl could encompass this Olympics' venues...
Astonishing how the joy and skepticism worked together, that we could be wary of feelings of unabashed celebration and clasp them nonetheless. Why in a world of real troubles should the heart leap up at the spectacle of 125 trumpeters trumpeting, 960 voices choiring, 1,065 high school girls (count 'em) drilling in the sun? A magic show. People turned into flags. A band became a map of the United States, and the map sang America the Beautiful. Why didn't 84 pianists in blue playing Rhapsody in Blue look preposterous? Why didn't Rocket Man look...