ACOG - News - IBM

(21 July 1996; Day 2)

Gymnastics Draw May Not Favor Romania, but Ability Does

The Romanian women's gymnastics team competed Saturday in the first session of the compulsory exercises and although the team dominated its morning competition, coach Octavian BALU would have preferred a later session.

"I respect Australia, Japan and Greece, but it was not a nice fight," BALU said of the teams in his early session. "I'm sure the later scores will be higher than in the morning. The same gymnast could make the same mistake in the afternoon and she would get a 9.1 in the morning and a 9.6 in the afternoon. It is like that. Can we still win? Yes. If I didn't think we could still win, we would not compete in the optionals."

In the morning session, BALU's Romanian team placed three gymnasts in the top five and outscored the second-place team, Ukraine, 193.138-192.308. BALU praised his team's performance and was philosophical about the draw.

"We performed as well as we could at 9:30 in the morning. I was pleased on the vault and bars. Balance beam is balance beam. If you don't feel very well on it one second, you can be off of it the next."

One Romanian athlete, Simona AMANAR, fell from the balance beam, scored a 8.687, but was able to score 38.049 in the all-around to stay in contention.

Romania is the favorite to win the gold, with Olympic veterans Gina GOGEAN and Lavinia MILOSOVICI leading the way and newcomer Alexandra MARINESCU predicted greatness as well.

MILOSOVICI was second after the morning session with 38.730, followed by GOGEAN in third at 38.723 and MARINESCU in fourth at 38.712.

The Romanians advance in first place to the optionals, scheduled for 22 July, battling for their second team gold medal in Olympic competition. Who does BALU expect to see in the finals?

"We expect that if we are lucky and the Americans are lucky, we will meet them and other teams in the optionals," BALU predicted.

"The competition is really the same for everybody, the same events, the same judges, the same pressures," he continued. "We have the optionals ahead and we understand what it's about. It's a battle and we must survive."

This is an official publication of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games Sports Publications Department. Written by Theresa Kelly Gegen.


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The volunteer staff of the 1996 Olympic Games totaled 50,152. They worked an estimated 850,000 shifts.