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- <text id=92TT1784>
- <title>
- Aug. 10, 1992: No Sure Bets
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Aug. 10, 1992 The Doomsday Plan
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 23
- OLYMPICS
- No Sure Bets
- </hdr><body>
- <p>U.S. athletes find the competition keener than anticipated
- </p>
- <p> In basketball, of course, the rest of the world pleaded nolo
- contendere: no team came within 33 points of the Dream Team
- during the first week of the Olympics. But plenty of other
- allegedly sure bets on the U.S. team found themselves absorbing
- bracing lessons at Barcelona. "You like to be a superhero all
- your life," said swimmer Matt Biondi, finishing fifth in the
- 100-m freestyle Tuesday, "but today my cape fell off." Only
- briefly, as it turned out. By week's end Biondi earned two
- medals for a lifetime total of 11, a record he shares with Mark
- Spitz.
- </p>
- <p> In women's gymnastics, favored Kim Zmeskal slipped on the
- balance beam in the team competition (but recouped to help the
- U.S. to a bronze medal), then bounced out of bounds--and
- contention--in floor exercises in the women's all-around.
- Shannon Miller stepped gracefully into the breach and took
- silver. Americans Mike Stulce and James Doehring won unexpected
- gold and silver in the shot put. And though America's women
- swimmers were surprised by the Chinese, who seemed to be picking
- up where the East Germans left off, the U.S. generally did well
- in the water. In 1988 American swimmers won 18 medals in Seoul;
- in Barcelona they splashed to 27. At week's end the Americans
- stood just behind the Unified Team in medals.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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