(Moscow) As a sport, the women's gymnastics competition at the 1980 Olympics was
marred by the usual charges of biased judging and controversy over whether the
right people won. As theater, however, it was boffo: The only pity is that US TV
audiences, so captivated by Olga Korbut in 1972 and Nadia Comaneci in 1976, got
only brief glimpses of this even more spectacular sequel.
"Nadia II," it might have been billed, for the Romanian star who dazzled the
crowds as a 14-year-old marvel in Montreal was the center of attention at the
beginning. She had a different role this time as the reigning queen of her sport
, but she was the same cool, haughty, incredibly poised performer as she milked
the crowd every time she stepped onto the mat.
Also back was Nelli Kim, the vivacious Soviet Eurasian who had dueled
Comaneci tooth and nail four years ago and actually matched her three gold
medals, although one of Kim's came via the team championship.
But 1980 was to be more than the "Nadia and Nelli Show," as a group of
aspiring young rivals led by 15-year-old Maxi Gnauck of East Germany and Kim's
teammates Yelena Davydova and Natalya Shaposhnikova made quickly apparent. There
was even a candidate for "best actor" in the person of Romanian coach Bela
Karolyi, who earned automatic life membership in the Illie Nastase school of
histrionics with his raging, seething, head-in-hands performance after Nadia
lost the all-around gold medal to Davydova via some close, complicated, and very
controversial scoring.
"It was planned tha way," Karolyi charged later, calling it "an arrangement"
to ensure a Soviet gold medal. "It was a big injustice," he added. "Anyone who
saw tonight will know that Nadia was the winner."
The Romanian press quickly took up the cry for the country's national
heroine. "They grossly violated sports ethics and the Olympic spirit in full
view of the world," wrote the official communist party newspaper in Bucharest.
It was all reminiscent of that scene in 1972 after the Soviet Union's
controversial place in defense of her all-around crown.
Another highlight of that second night was the emergence of Davydova, a tiny
18-year-old dazzler who was a late addition to the Soviet team and was competing
in her first major international competition.
Now came the big night-the battle for the prestigious all-around
championship. Gnauck was the leader on the basis of her overall score in the
first two days, and [TEXT OMITTED FROM SOURCE] crowd gave her a big hand,
seeming to sense that she had done it.
But on the floor a bizarre scene developed as judges, officials, and coaches
argued while the crowd moved from expectant silence to murmurs to loud chanting
for a decision. At one point Davydova climbed up onto the mat and held up her
hands to the cheering crowd as if to signal her victory. Finally, after an
unprecendented delay of more than 30 minutes [TEXT OMITTED FROM SOURCE] stands
changed "fair play, fair play." Now, when Nadia's loss was official, he was disconsolate, storiming around, wringing his head in his hands, his face an
ever-changing mirror of disbelief, pleading, anger, and dispair.
The official explanation was that judges from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
Poland, and the Soviet Union had given her scores of 10, 9.9, 9.8 and 9.8,
respectively (in gymnastics you throw out the high and low scores, then average
the others); that Romanian head judge Maria Simionescu had refused to accept
those marks and asked for higher ones; but that in the end the original scores
stood.
Karolyi charged, however, that the original scoring had gone 10-10-9.9-9.9,
which would have meant the necessary 9.95 [TEXT ILLEGIBLE] that Ellen Berger of
East Germany, [TEXT ILLEGIBLE] man of the technical commitee of the women's
gymnastics federation, had ordered the lowering of these marks.
Berger, for her part, denied these allegations, calling the coach "a bad
sport." And of course we'll never know for sure who's telling the truth and who
isn't.
Anyway, the show must go on, and there was still one more night -- with a
last chance for Nadia to be golden again. It began inauspiciously for her,
though, as Comaneci (who wasn't even in the bars competition because of her
earlier fall) fell in the vault.
Now there were just two chance left, starting on the beam, but his time the
ending was a happy one, as she edged Shaposhnikova for the gold medal. Then came
the floor exercises -- her last competition of 1980 -- and Nadia brought the
house down with a series of spectacular cartwheels, somersaults, and other
acrobatic maneuvers to a rock music accompaniment. Finally it was all over and
the trademark frown of concentration was replaced by a happy smile as she hugged
her teammates and coach.
At first the scores indicated that Kim had won the gold medal here, but an
upward revision made it a tie between her and Comanceci. Were the judges trying
to "even up" for the previous night's questionable events, or was it just, as
they insisted, a computer problem? Again, we'll never know.
Nadia did emerge as the only competitor with two individual gold medals in
the wide-open competition (the others went to Gnauk [TEXT OMITTED FROM SOURCE]