Comaneci falls, gold to Soviets

Author: From Wire Services
Date: Thursday, July 24, 1980
Page: ?????
Section: SPORTS

MOSCOW - Nadia Comaneci proved she wasn't perfect yesterday when she fell off the uneven parallel bars and her Romanian women's gymnastic team lost the Olympic gold medal to the Soviets.

The Soviets have dominated this event since the 1952 Helsinki Games, but the Romanians had beaten them for the world championship in Fort Worth, Tex., in 1979.

Comaneci was leading in the individual standings of the team competition, for which no medal is given, until she lost her grip while trying to flip from the higher to the lower of the two horizontal bars and fell to the mat.

Displaying her now legendary stoicism, she went back to the bars and finished the exercise, but got only a 9.50 score from the judges following three straight 9.90s on other exercises. Even if she had gotten a perfect 10, the Soviets probably would have won, since their team total was 394.90 to 393.50 for Romania and 392.55 for East Germany.

Maxi Gnauck, 15, of East Germany, scored a 10 in the uneven bars and replaced Comaneci on top of the individual standings. Nadia dropped to fourth. Soviet star Natalia Shaposhnikova had a 10 on Monday, Romanian Melita Ruhn scored 10 on the vault and Yelena Davydova of the Soviet Union scored a 10 in floor exercises yesterday.

Nelli Kim of the Soviet Union, one of Comaneci's leading opponents for the all-around title, finished her floor exercise with a 9.95 and leaped off the mat into the arms of her teammates, then broke into tears. She was the Soviet team spokeswoman at a postcompetition news conference.

"Unfortunately, I don't know Nadia personally, but I'm sure she's a very nice girl and I respect her greatly for her hard work," Kim said. Then, in the manner of so many Soviet sports figures, she attributed her team's success to "the socialist system and the coaches we have."

Par Arvidsson of Sweden became the first person attending an American college to win a gold medal in these Olympics, which are being boycotted by 36 nations. The University of California swimmer was timed in 54.92 seconds in the 100-meter butterfly event, compared to the 54.15 world record he set at the American indoor championships last April.

Arvidsson said before the Moscow Games that he agreed with President Carter's call for a boycott to protest Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. But he said he went along with the decision of his Swedish team, which elected to compete.

Rica Reinisch of East Germany broke her world record in winning the 100-meter backstroke in 1:00.86. It was the third time this week she had lowered the mark, and this also was her second gold medal of these Games.

Lina Kachushite of the Soviet Union broke the swimming domination of the East German women with a gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke, her second gold of the Olympics. She was timed in 2:29.54, an Olympic record and considerably better than the best American time this year, 2:33.06 by Tracy Caulkins of Nashville, Tenn.

The Soviet men's swimming team won the 800-meter freestyle relay event in 7:23.50, just .28 of a second over the Olympic record set by the US team in 1976

In a controversy at the Olympic diving pool, the 3-meter springboard event awards ceremony was delayed because the second, third and fourth place finishers protested a Soviet victory.

Falk Hoffman of East Germany and Carlos Giron of Mexico complained that Aleksander Portnov of the Soviet Union was allowed to repeat a dive when he protested crowd noise, while Hoffman was turned down on a similar request. Hoffman finished fourth, Giron, second.

The International Swimming Federation disallowed the protest, saying that a diver may repeat a dive if conditions warrant, but that the decision of judges is final under FIFA rules if they decide not to allow such a repeat.

Yanko Roussev of Bulgaria set a world record with a combined lift of 743 pounds in the 149-pound weightlifting class to win the gold.

In Greco-Roman wrestling, Gheorghi Raikov of Bulgaria won the gold medal in the 220-pound division by defeating Roman Bierla of Poland. Vakhtang Blagidze of the Soviet Union won the gold in the 114-pound class, scoring a 19-1 victory over Hungarian Lajos Racz. Ferenc Kocsis of Hungary won the gold in the 163-pound class when Soviet defending champion Anatoly Bykov was disqualified for passivity in the final match.

Vladimir Smirnov of the Soviet Union won the gold in the men's individual foil fencing event with Pascat Jolyot of France second and world champion Alexander Romankov of the Soviet Union third.

Russian Viktor Vlasov broke the world record by one point in winning the gold in the three position small-bore rifle event. He hit 1173 out of 1200 targets.