Wednesday, August 1, 1984AThe Battalion/Page 7
Sports
U.S. gymnasts win gold, set record
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United Press International
f LOS ANGELES — The United
States’ deep and balanced men’s
team won America’s first team gym-
inastics gold medal in Olympic his
tory Tuesday night, performing 33
near-flawless routines to go with
three perfect optionals and upset
heavily favored China.
The gold, actually garnered on
; the basis of the 1.05-point margin
the Americans took over the 1983
World Champion Chinese in the
compulsories Sunday night, brought
a spectacular end to the United
States’ five decades of Olympic gym
nastics oblivion. The last U.S. team
medal, a silver, came in 1932, also in
Los Angeles.
In winning the gold, the Ameri
cans broke by two points the Olym
pic team-score record set by Soviet
gymnasts four years ago in Moscow.
The only other men’s Olympic
gymnastics medal won by the Ameri
cans in that 52-year span was an in
dividual bronze by Peter Korman at
the 1976 Montreal Olympics in floor
exrcise.
The bronze medal Tuesday night
went to Japan.
Due to the boycott of these Games
by the Soviet Union, the Americans
came to Los Angeles hoping simply
to beat the Japanese for the silver
medal. U.S. Coach Abie Grossfeld
had said the team’s chances of upset
ting the Chinese were just a little bet
ter than the American hockey team’s
odds of upsetting the Russians at
Lake Placid in 1980.
Like that hockey team, the U.S.
gymnasts pulled off their miracle the
hard way — by winning the compul
sory round Sunday night. No U.S.
men’s gymnastics team had ever won
U.S. Coach Abie Grossfeld had said the team's chances
of upsetting the Chinese were just a little better than the
American hockey team's odds of upsetting the Russians
at Lake Placid in 1980.
compulsories in Olympic or World
Championship competition.
The capacity crowd at Pauley Pa
vilion was on its feet stomping and
cheering at the end when the final
results were announced. The gym
nasts — Peter Vidmar, Bart Conner,
Tim Daggett, Mitch Gaylord, Jim
Hartung and Scott Johnson —
hugged each other, slapped hands
and bounced up and down in delight
as soon as they learned they had
made American gymnastics history.
The Chinese outscored the Amer
icans in the optional portion of the
competition by .45 of a point Tues
day night, even though the U.S.
matched China in perfect scores.
But the ability to throw occasional
10s was not among the Americans’
chief strengths. What they had going
for them were six solid, evenly
matched gymnasts capable of per
forming routine after routine of
consistently strong, if, unspectacular,
events.
Also working in their favor was
determination, evident in the way
they constantly cheered each other
and exhorted the crowd to join
them. Also very important to their
victory was the home court advan
tage.
Three of the gymnasts — Vidmar,
Gaylord and Daggett — actually
were performing on the same Pauley
Pavilion floor where they competed
for UCLA’s NCAA champions last
winter.
The fans were rewarded when
Gaylord performed a perfect rou
tine on the rings, Conner earned a
10 with an original and extremely
difficult routine on the parallel bars
and Daggett was spectacularly flaw
less on the high bar.
Vidmar led all individual scorers
with 118.55 points of a possible
120.00 through two rounds. China’s
creative and more spectacular but
less-consistent Li Ning, who took six
of seven gold medals at the 1982
World Cup, was second with 118.45.
Tong Fei of China was third at
118.4, followed by Conner at 118.30.
The American women will try
Wednesday night to make a clean
sweep of the team gold medals. The
U.S. women enter the optional
round of team competition trailing
heavily favored Romania by .45.
Vidmar, Conner and Gaylord ad
vance to the individual all-around
competition Thursday night as the
three leading U.S. scorers in the
team event. The top 36 scorers in
the team competition participate in
the all-around, but only three-per-
team may advance.
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American swimmers take 5 gold medals Rangers
squeak by
Baltimore
United Press International
LOS ANGELES — Gold medal
performances by Tiffany Cohen and
Rowdy Gaines, along with a surprise
1-2 American finish in the women’s
100-meter backstroke, highlighted a
United States sweep of all five events
in Tuesday’s Olympic swimming
competition.
The five gold medals in swimming
boosted the U.S. total to 11 in that
sport and to 15 overall in the first
three days of the Olympics.
Cohen set an Olympic record in
the women’s 400-meter freestyle in
taking the gold for the U.S.
Gaines, accused by silver medalist
Mark Stockwell of Australia of bene-
fitting from an unfair start, won the
gold in the men’s 100-meter free
style. Per Johansson of Sweden took
the bronze, repeating his third place
finish in the 1980 Moscow Games.
America’s Theresa Andrews was a
surprise winner of the women’s 100-
meter backstroke, just barely edging
U.S. teammate Betsy Mitchell.
The U.S. women’s team was not
expected to do well in the back-
stroke, but Andrews and Mitchell
clearly outdistanced pre-meet favor
ites Carmen Bunaciu and Anita Pa-
trascoiu of Romania.
World record-holder Rick Carey
of the U.S. took the gold medal eas
ily in the men’s 200-meter back-
stroke, while the American women’s
4 x 100-meter freestyle relay team
also turned in a gold medal finish.
Gaines bettered the Olympic re
cord of :49.99 set in the 1976 Mon
treal Games by American Jim Mont
gomery with a time of :49.80.
“I didn’t know where I was until
the last 25 meters,” Gaines said.
“Then I said to myself, T have 25
more meters for the rest of my life
and I’ll never have to do this again.”
However, Gaines was accused of
starting the last race of his life a little
too quickly.
“That was not a fair start,” Austra
lia’s Stockwell charged. “I didn’t
know what to expect. I thought the
starter would call everyone back. Do
they think they can change the rules
here in America in order to win or
what? I’m trying to be a good sport
about this but I really am disgusted.”
Stockwell also apologized to
Gaines, saying it took nothing away
from his victory, but that the Austra
lian Swimming Federation had filed
a formal protest.
Cohen, an 18-year-old Califor
nian, set an American record with
the best performance of her career.
Shealso broke the previous Olympic
record of 4:08.76. Cohen’s time of
4:07.12, the second-fastest in his
tory, bettered teammate Kim Line-
han’s American record of 4:07.20.
Linehan finished fourth in the
race with two British swimmers tak
ing the silver and bronze. Sarah
Hardcastle set a British record by
finishing in 4:10.27 to attain the sil
ver and June Croft captured the
bronze in 4:11.49.
Boxing team remains unbeaten at LA. Games
United Press International
LOS ANGELES — Steve McCrory
won his first-round Olympic bout in
a walkover Tuesday when.his oppo
nent was unable to make the weight
limit, while American teammate
Frank Tate used a more traditional
method — punches — to win his first
bout of the Games.
The victories left the U.S. un
beaten through six bouts.
McCrory was awarded the victory
when his opponent, Tad Joseph of
Grenada, failed to show up after he
was unable to make the 112-pound
limit in the morning.
Tate, the world champion and
top-ranked fighter in the world in
the 156-pound division, advanced
with a 5-0 win over Sweden’s Lotfi
Ayed in a decision that brought boos
from the American crowd. Ayed dis
gustedly threw his hands into the air
when the decision was announced.
Tate narrowly won the first
round, moving and jabbing to pile
up points while Ayed landed several
good rights. Ayed controlled the sec
ond round, driving Tate back with
hard rights, and the third round ap
peared close.
“Maybe if I lost 3-2 or he lost 3-2 .
but not 5-0,” Ayed said. “I took him
in the second round: 3-2 to me, 3-2
to him — but he’s an American. This
is his home, but not 5-0.”
Both Tate and McCrory fight out
of Detroit’s famed Kronk Gym and
McCrory said he already can hear
the celebrating back home.
“If Frank and I both win gold
medals, we’ll be like Michael Jackson
back in Detroit,” he said. “We’ll be as
big as (super welterweight champ)
Thomas Hearns and bigger than
Mayor (Coleman) Young.”
McCrory is a solid bet for the gold
medal because of the Soviet-led boy
cott. Among the casualties of the
Eastern-bloc boycott were nine of
world’s top 10 boxers in the 112-
pound class, including No. 1 ranked
world champion Pedro Reyes of
Cuba, who has beaten McCrory
twice in 1984.
Few of the remaining fighters are
given much of a chance at knocking
off McCrory.
United Press International
BALTIMORE — Curtis Wilker-
son scored on a wild pitch by Tippy
Martinez to snap a 5-5 tie in the
eighth inning and the Texas Rang
ers belted four homers to record a 7-
6 victory over the Baltimore Orioles
Tuesday night.
Wilkerson led off the eighth with
a single against Martinez, 4-7. Wil
kerson was sacrificed to second and,
after Buddy Bell walked, took third
on Gary Ward’s single. With Larry
Parrish batting, Martinez uncorked
a wild pitch to score Wilkerson.
Ward moved to third on the wild
pitch and scored on Pete O’Brien’s
infield out to make it 7-5.
Reliever Odell Jones (2-4) who es
caped a bases-loaded, two-out jam in
the sixth, got the win.
The Orioles made it 7-6 on a dou
ble by Murray and RBI single by
Ken Singleton in the ninth to chase
Jones. Dave Schmidt came on and
retired the side in order for his sev
enth save.
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