ports Friday, August 3, 1984AThe Battalion/Page 7 U.S. boxers win ninth straight United Press International 1 LOS ANGELES — Meldrick Tay lor of Philadelphia, the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic boxing team, kept the American win streak alive Thursday with a 5-0 thrashing ol Romania’s Nicolae Talpos in the 125-pound division. Taylor, just 17, blistered the Ro- anian with seven and eight-punch ffiurries to the body throughout the |econd-round bout to extend the merican unbeaten streak to nine. U.S. gymnast gets silver in Olympic all-arounds Robert Shannon tried to make it 0 straight Thursday night when he ade his Olympic debut with a sec- ! I’m (aldjf ond-round bout in the 118-pound Iflass against Sammy Mwangi of Ke- Hya. Both Taylor and Shannon drew ■first-round byes. I Taylor, a product of the gym of I former heavyweight champion Joe Brazier, began tentatively against the ■Romanian southpaw, but soon be- Han sliding underneath his oppo nent’s lazy right jab and scoring heavily with the combinations to the lody. He hurt Talpos early in the final and then chased him around lie ring for the final two minutes as the Romanian tried desperately to Stay out of Taylor’s reach. I “I’m pretty proud that I am the youngest fighter on the team,” Tay lor said. “Maybe I can go down in iiistory as the youngest if I win the gold medal.” iy toy; ill conlinut nges of our apidly dives rable tax sic nag iustrial proi expand 8,jji a 2 percent! rate of 9.2 p | 1985. should Jackie Fields, the 1924 Olympic Isihroughl? ifeatherweight champion, holds that exceedingik American record. He was 16 when he won his medal. But Taylor could f living...wi become the youngest since then, itional aver# .. The minimum age for making the ' United States Olympic boxing team is 17. I Taylor’s next opponent will be Mexico’s Francisco Camacho, who stopped Jean Luc Bezoky of Mada gascar in the bout preceding Tay- Ijor’s. That fight will be held Sunday. United Press International LOS ANGELES — Japan’s Koji Gushiken earned one perfect 10 and scored no less than 9.9 in the other five events Thursday night to edge American Peter Vidmar for the Olympic gold medal in men’s indi vidual all-around gymnastics compe tition. China’s crowd-pleasing Li Ning earned the bronze medal in a com petition decided by hundredths of a point. Seven men entered the competi tion separated by two-tenths of a point coming from team competi tion Tuesday night. Those seven fin ished separated by just 0.475 points. Gushiken, at 27 the oldest of the all-around finalists, defeated Vid mar by 0.025— with 118.7 of a possi ble 120 points to 118.675 for the UCLA product. Li had 118.575. “I didn’t come here to lose,” Gushiken had warned after fin ishing team competition ranked fifth behind Vidmar and Li. Gushiken, runnerup to the Soviet Union’s Demitri Belozerchev at the 1983 World Championships in Bu dapest, was a model of consistency in the competition at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. He earned his perfect score, one of three awarded Thursday night, in vaulting and picked up 9.95 on the still rings and horizontal bar. He set tled for 9.90 on pommel horse, floor exercise and parallel bars. Gushiken made no major breaks or errors. Rather, his failure to earn 10s across the board stemmed from a couple minor missteps and a lower degree of difficulty for his routines. Through the luck of the draw de termining order of performance, Gushikin didn’t take over the lead until the fifth of six rotations. Until that point, the competition appeared to be a duel between Vid mar and Li. Vidmar led Li by .05 en tering Thursday night’s competition and picked up another 10th of a point on the 20-year-old Chinese star on the first rotation by earning the first 10 of the night, on the hori zontal bar, while Li earned 9.90 in floor exercise. The largely pro-American crowd knew that Vidmar and Li were tied for first entering the fifth event and, when Vidmar scored a 9.90 in vault ing while Li earned 9.80 on parallel bars, they went wild. It became evident when the new leaders were posted on the scoreboard after the fifth rotation that Vidmar was going to be looking for a 10 in his last event, parallel bars, in order to overtake Gushikin. Vidmar came close. He was flaw less until his dismount, but he lost his balance slightly and scored a 9.90. Each nation qualified three gym nasts into the all-around competi tion, but all three Americans man aged to finish in that tight top seven of the 36 participants. Mitch Gaylord, tied for sixth with China’s Xu Chiqing entering the fi nals, finished fifth behind Tong. Conner took sixth, just ahead of Xu. “I think it’s amazing, it’s great,” said Conner, a three-time Olympian, referring to the closeness of the competition. “For a gymnast, the all- around is like the Heisman Trophy. For the three of us Americans to be that high is just fantastic.” U.S. beats South Korea in women’s hoop action Photo by SUZANNE FISK A&M Basketball Camp From left to right, high school students Michele Hartman from Nassau Bay, Leesa Hawkins from Robinson, Lori Mob ley form Lake Jackson and Kim Brown from Mansfield get in position for a rebound during a scrimmage. United Press International INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The U.S. women’s basketball team, tested briefly in the first half, improved its Olympic record to 3-0 Thursday by pummeling previously undfeated South Korea 84-47. Cheryl Miller had 16 points and Janice Lawrence added 13 for the Americans, who play China Friday night. In qualifying for a spot in the next round, the U.S. squad broke to leads of 12-2 and 20-6 before the South Koreans made their only run and pulled to 20-14 midway through the first half. The teams then exchanged bas kets before an 18-4 burst — keyed by 4 points each by Lawrence, Lynette Woodard and Cindy Noble — put the Americans in control at 40-20. South Korea, expected to give the Americans some trouble with their zone press, was taken out of the game as a result of shooting 35 per cent in the first half making 13 turn overs. Lawrence hit four fouls shots and Miller had three baskets early in the second half to make it 50-24. U.S. Coach Pat Head Summitt played her reserves the rest of the way. The Americans, bidding for their first Olympic gold medal, previously routed Yugoslavia and Australia. South Korea, with victories over Yu goslavia and Canada, fell to 2-1. The Americans have won their three games by a total of 99 points. Earlier Thursday, Canada im proved its record to 2-1 with a 56-46 triumph over Australia. Bev Smith and Andrea Blackwell had 12 points each for the winners and Robyn Maher scored 12 for Australia, 0-3. The top four teams in the six- team tournament advance to the next round with the gold medal to be decided Aug. 7. Swim relay team posts world record, takes gold r : 259:45 i Senility dtse. United Press International LOS ANGELES — The American 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay team, mirroring the electric performance f their 800-meter counterparts, ontinued the United States’ gold edal harvest in swimming Thurs- lay by establishing a world record in he final race of the day. The relay quartet, anchored by 100-meter freestyle gold medalist Rowdy Gaines, overtook Australia in the final 100 meters to push the United States’ gold medal total in swimming to 14. The United States’ time of 3:19.03 lowered the previous world best of 3:19.26 set by the :159:35 Americans in the 1982 World Cham pionships. Americans went 1-2 in both the women’s 100 butterfly and the 400 freestyle. Mary T. Meagher, world record-holder in the 100 butterfly, edged teammate Jenna Johnson to capture the gold in that event and George DiCarlo nipped fellow American John Mykkanen in the 400 freestyle. The United States had won eight straight golds at one point before Canada’s Victor Davis won the gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke by lowering his own world record in a race that saw the United States The United States had won eight straight golds at one point before Canada's Victor Davis won the gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke by lowering his own world record in a race that saw the United States shut out. shut out. The Americans also came up empty in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke, won by Holland’s Petra Van Staveren in Olympic record-set ting time. The American 4 x 100 meter relay team took an early lead behind Matt Cavanaugh but the Aussies caught up halfway through the race. The race was nearly dead even when Gaines hit the water and the veteran sprinter held off the Aussies before a flag-waving, partisan American crowd at the pool at the University of Southern California campus. Sweden won the bronze while West Germany, anchored by double gold medalist Michael Gross, could not overcome a large deficit. Meagher had broken East Ger many’s Kornelia Ender’s Olympic record in the prelims but she spotted Johnson, whb had upset her in the Olympic trials, the early lead and had to overcome the 16-year-old California swimmer in the final 25 meters to win the gold. DiCarlo, a University of Arizona senior, had set an Olympic record in winning his race in 3:51.23, eclipsing Soviet Vladimir Salnikov’s previous mark of 3:51.31 set in 1980. But West Germany’s Thomas Fahrner, who had finished ninth in the pre lims, came back minutes later to swim a 3:50.91. After a consultation by FIN A, the international governing body for swimming, Fahrner was awarded the Olympic record. DiCarlo still is the medal winner. “When I saw DiCarlo’s time, I was convinced I could beat it,” he said. “I should have swum as hard as I could this morning instead of just trying to take it easy and just qualify.” basketball team rates its performance ‘9.6’ mAlHKJlB w 20 9:40 »y pitjenti United Press International LOS ANGELES — If gold medals were awarded for practice, Bobby Knight might be resting easier. “The best basketball we’ve played so far has not been in the games,” the U.S. Olympic basketball coach said Thursday, “but on the practice floor after playing China.” It’s not as if the score with China was close and the Americans needed to whip their game into shape —they won easily 97-49. Next came Canada and an 89-68 victory, followed by a [ 104-68 blitz of Uruguay. The 3-0 record leaves the United -States tied with Spain for first place in Group B with each assured a berth in the next round. The top four teams from Groups A and B advance. The Americans next face France Friday. Franck, with losses to Uruguay, China and Spain, could face its coup de grace against the United States. The French are led by center Phil ippe Szanyiel and forwards Eric Beugnot and Herve Dubuisson, re cently signed by the NBA’s New Jer sey Nets. Knight respects their capa bilities. “They’ve got excellent person nel,” he said. “They shoot well and get up and down the floor well.” Despite the lopsided scores, Knight has not relented in his drive for execution and his insistence on fundamentals. “He’s always striving for perfec tion,” said SMU center Jon Koncak. “We were up by 25 at the half against Canada and I thought were were playing pretty well. But he came in the locker room and jumped all over us. He never lets us get com placent.” Thus far the games — from a purely athletic standpoint — have been little more than anti-climaxes to Knight’s practices. The teams from Yugoslavia, Italy and Spain fig ure to provide the most serious tests. Wayman Tisdale, who has played well underneath, likened China to a junior college team and Canada to a Division I team. He said any Big Eight Conference school could beat Uruguay. “At this point, we feel if you take the scoreboard away, I think we feel that we’ve been losing the games, all three of them,” the Oklahoma All- America said. “We still have a lot of tough games. The American people can’t get too overconfident now. I think they’re more overconfident than we are because we know we have to still go out and still work at it.” Leon Wood, who has run the fast break masterfully, said the first three opponents have presented few problems. “I’ve been able to do anything I want so far as the break goes,” he said. “I usually throw one move and I’m gone.” Wood said basketball is not the only event on the players’ minds. “We’ve been sitting around watch ing the gymnastics competition,” he said. “Me, Michael (Jordan), Steve (Alford) and Vern (Fleming), we’re sort of becoming judges ourselves. After a competition, we’ll kind of rate the performance. We were jumping off the chair when Mary Lou Retton got a 10. How would I rate our team so far? “Well, obviously we can’t play a perfect game. 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