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Updated at 4:45 p.m.
September 21, 2000
Phoenix's Hyman takes gold
The Associated Press
Swimmer Misty Hyman gets, well, misty-eyed as "The Star-Spangled Banner" plays during her medal ceremony.
Workers' error trips up U.S. gymnasts
By EDDIE PELLS
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) ‹ Elise Ray
figured it was just jitters as she
stared up into the lights after
landing flat on her back on the vault
warmup, her first routine of the
night.
It wasn't. It was a big mistake.
The vault was set 1.97 inches too low
for the first 18 gymnasts who
hurdled it Thursday at the women's
all-around. For Ray, one of three
Americans in the all-around, that
translated into two more falls after
the warmup and a wretched score of
7.618.
She and four other gymnasts got to vault again at the end of the
night, but the emotional damage had been done.
``Going out on the first
event and falling on
both vaults, it was like,
`Oh my gosh,''' said
Ray, who improved her
score on the do-over and
jumped from 35th to
14th. ``My confidence
just went down a lot. It's
hard to build yourself
back up after
something like that.''
Nothing could have
stopped gold-medalist
Andreea Raducan and
her two Romanian
teammates, Simona
Amanar and Maria
Olaru, who joined her
on the medal stand.
The adorable 4-foot-10 Raducan scored a 9.706 despite the
lowered vault. Later, she closed the evening with a magical floor
performance set to music from ``Riverdance.''
She scored a 9.825 on floor to beat Amanar, and didn't have to
worry about vaulting again. Instead, she climbed aboard the
shoulders of coach Octavian Belu, blew kisses to the crowd and
waved, part of a raucous Romanian celebration on the floor.
During the medals
ceremony, Raducan
looked at her prize in
awe, then lifted it off
her chest, kissed it and
showed it to her
countrymen in the
crowd, who witnessed
Romania's first
all-around gold medal
winner since Nadia
Comaneci.
The Romanians, who
also won team gold
Tuesday, are the first
team to sweep the
all-around since the
former Soviet Union in
1960.
``It's like having a dream, a nice dream,'' Raducan said. ``I still
feel like I'm in this dream.''
And Ray felt like she had been part of a nightmare.
The mistake came when the vault
was being adjusted by workers who
move the apparatus between the
men's and women's competition. The
vault is set higher for the men than
the women and apparently, someone
let the pin that holds the horse in
place slip too low when they adjusted
it.
``If that had happened at our
national championships, I would
have killed somebody,'' said Kathy
Kelly, the women's national
coordinator.
On her warmup vault, Ray came
barreling down the runway, jumped
off the springboard and completely
missed the vault with her hands.
With no push to propel her, she
barely cleared the apparatus before
landing with a thud on the mat, her
head snapping forward as her back
touched down.
``It really, really scared me. I didn't know what was going on,''
Ray said. ``I'm extremely disappointed, but it also makes me
very mad that the equipment is wrong, you know?''
On the first real jump, Ray bounced backward on the landing,
barely avoiding hitting her head on the back of the vault. The
second vault produced a landing smack on her backside, another
awful score and the apparent end to her outside chance at a
medal.
``Stuff like that happens,'' Kelly said. ``Sometimes you get
injured and it's not your fault. It's just sport. It's also very
bizarre, and I'm very sorry for her.''
Slava Corn of the International Gymnastics Federation said
there was no chance of starting the meet over or erasing the
results.
``There are an awful lot of people who are responsible,'' Corn
said. ``It's unfortunate no one noticed. They all had a chance to
repeat their vaults. There is no further recourse.''
Svetlana Khorkina was also a victim. The moody Russian
superstar was favored to win the all-around, but she finished
11th.
Her medal chances ended when she landed on her knees after her
first vault. The pouting started there and continued the rest of
the night, especially after a fall off the uneven bars gave her a
9.012 and a longwinded protest came up empty. She could have
vaulted again, but didn't bother, leaving the floor and telling
Russian reporters to ``get lost'' in her native tongue.
``The five centimeters do make a difference,'' Russian coach
Nadejda Maslinnikova said. But she recalled Khorkina's similar
troubles on vault in the team competition.
``If you can't do it, even a meter isn't going to help,''
Maslinnikova said.
Americans Amy Chow and Kristen Maloney felt for their
teammate and all the competitors who got shorted. The vault
had been corrected by the time they reached the rotation, but
Chow and Maloney had problems beforehand.
Chow stepped out of bounds on the floor exercise and stumbled
backwards on her beam dismount en route to 15th place.
Maloney wobbled on the beam and never showed the power that
made her a two-time national champion. She finished 20th.
They too wondered what Ray, who finished eighth at world
championships last year, might have accomplished had her
night not been tainted early.
``Yeah, it does throw you off a little bit,'' Maloney said. ``You get
upset. You're trying your best and it doesn't work out. It's hard to
come back that fast. It's kind of weird that something like that
would happen here, at the Olympics.''
Almost everyone agreed that weird didn't begin to describe the
mixup.
``It's as strange as the day is long,'' said Bob Colarossi, president
of USA Gymnastics.
The debate over the Short Vault Caper will surely rage on for a
long time.
``You're never going to know what might have happened had
the vault been set right,'' said 1984 gold medalist Peter Vidmar,
who saw the scene unfold. ``It could have helped Elise. It could
have hurt her. But it's a tragedy for the kids. That's the bottom
line.''
Here's the delivery
Anthony Sanders goes to Olympics as wife gives birth
Sarah Prall/Staff
So close: Claudia Sanders, wife of Olympic baseball player Anthony Sanders, cradles her newborn son, Logan, at their home in Tucson. Logan was born Sept. 9 at University Medical Center.
Anthony Sanders
By Edward de la Fuente
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Someday, when Logan Noah Sanders is a little older, his parents will have quite a story to tell him.
The tale already has received national attention on NBC's coverage of the Olympics: Little Logan has yet to meet his father, Santa Rita High School product Anthony Sanders, who is in Sydney competing with the USA baseball team.
While Anthony's wife, Claudia, was in labor at University Medical Center on the night of Sept. 9, he was halfway around the world, playing in an exhibition game against South Africa. As Team USA headed to the dugout at the end of each inning, Anthony made a beeline for the nearest phone for the latest update from Claudia, who had a cell phone.
"I was in the middle of contractions, so all he would hear was screaming and yelling," Claudia said. "But he could kind of get the gist of what was happening. I couldn't even muster a 'Hi, babe, how's it going?' "
Anthony homered in the fourth inning of Team USA's eventual 17-1 victory, then phoned after the frame to learn that Claudia had given birth. "What did we have?" he asked.
"It's a boy," Claudia replied.
She proceeded to describe the newborn to him. "He looks just like his dad," Claudia said. "I told him, 'I've got your Mini-Me here.' "
Then, Anthony chimed in. "By the way," he said, "I hit a home run."
"That commemorated the moment, I think," Claudia said. "He hit the home run, and 10 minutes later, he called and the baby had been born. I wish I knew if the baby was coming out the minute he hit the home run."
Because doctors have told Claudia she cannot take Logan on a plane for at least a month, she cannot go to Australia, as Anthony's parents have done. She couldn't go ahead of the birth, either, because it likely would have meant staying well after the Olympics.
When Anthony was selected to Team USA in late August, he and Claudia were overjoyed - until they realized it would take him away from their baby's birth.
"I told him I'd much rather he have a chance to go to the Olympics than get called up," Claudia said. "I thought it would be a bigger honor. But we realized the timing of it. It wouldn't matter if the baby was early, on time, or late. He was going to miss it.
"It was hard to stomach. I had been looking forward to him being at (the baby's) birth."
Still, Claudia insisted that Anthony play for Team USA.
"If I would have had a problem with it, he would have considered not going," Claudia said. "But the fact I was so encouraging, I don't think he thought twice about it. It was something he had to do. But he was obviously very disappointed."
Claudia last saw Anthony during Team USA's only stateside workout, in San Diego on Sept. 2. Asked about the impending birth after the practice, Anthony's face drooped. "That's the only bad thing about all of this," he said.
The notoriety began after USA Baseball sent out a press release announcing the birth. Stories began appearing on the Internet, and soon after the "Today" show came calling, setting up a live interview with the couple. It enabled Anthony to see his son for the first time via satellite.
"It's been unbelievable to me," Claudia said. "I didn't expect any kind of publicity at all. I'm surprised there's so much interest."
Although the baby was nearly a week old, the couple had not decided on a name. But Anthony told one of the show's producers the baby's name was Logan Noah, which took Claudia by surprise when the boy was referred to by name on the air.
"It was one of our options, but we hadn't really agreed on that, as far as I was concerned," she said, laughing. "But he told the press that was his name. So I was like, 'OK, that's his name, then.' "
Since they were married in January, and even before then, Claudia had accompanied Anthony on all his road trips. She was there when he was called up to the Blue Jays last season, and traveled with him while he played for the Tacoma Rainiers, the Seattle Mariners' Triple-A affiliate, this season.
Sydney is the first place she hasn't gone, which she notes is ironic because the couple first met on a high-school excursion to Australia in 1992.
"I'm very disappointed," she said. "I really would have loved to be there."
But the story of Logan's birth will likely be told often in the Sanders family in the coming years. It's one many will already be familiar with.
Said Claudia: "It'll be a neat story to tell him."
Have gun, will travel ... win medal?
USA Shooting
Sierra Vista's Adam Saathoff trained for months in Russia and at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado.
By Greg Hansen
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
CECIL PARK, Australia - Adam Saathoff took aim with his seventh of 30 shots, breathing deeply, knowing that none of the first six hit the bull's-eye. Was he choking? Do shooters choke?
He knew this much: one more miss, another nine in a sport that demands a 10, and he would be out of Olympic medal competition less than two minutes after he began.
In the bleachers at the Sydney International Shooting Center, Saathoff's mother couldn't bear to watch. Kris Saathoff covered her eyes with her hands, sometimes peeking between fingers to see the electronic scoreboard.
"It's so nerve-racking,'' she would say 30 minutes later. "After that start, after all those 9s, it almost took my breath away.''
Adam Saathoff is no longer a rookie in international shooting the way he was at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He is 25. He has trained for months in Russia, and at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado. He has shot in more than 15 countries, against the best of the best. At one time or another across the last four years, he has beaten all of the 17 men in the finals of the Olympic Running Target competition.
If his training meant anything, it was that he was prepared to deal with a poor start, to keep his composure and, as he would say, "buckle down when I had to.''
He had to.
The former firefighter from Sierra Vista shot 19 perfect 10s in his final 24 shots at the moving targets, 10 meters away. He remains solidly in medal competition for tomorrow's finals.
Is that clutch or what?
"What this comes down to,'' Saathoff said, "is that one shot can send you packing. One bad shot can pretty much unravel all the good you've done in four years. I was a little nervous at the beginning, but I also realized I was having some bad luck. I thought I'd be OK once I buckled down - and I was.''
Bad luck in target shooting is getting a 9.9, an infinitesimal margin from a perfect 10. Those 9.9s aren't rounded up. They're rounded down, to a 9.
Saathoff finished with 289 of a possible 300 points yesterday, which puts him four shots out of the lead for today's final round. There will be another 30 shots, this time with the target moving much faster, remaining in the shooter's view for 2.5 seconds. (First-round targets are within view for five seconds). The faster, the better for Saathoff.
"I'm still in the hunt,'' he said. "The fast-run is my strength.''
"There is hope (for a medal),'' said Sergey Luzov, the Russian-born coach of the USA Shooting running target team. "No one is sticking out too far with a lead. Maybe (today) I won't have to smoke a pack of cigarettes from being so nervous.''
Since 1996, Saathoff has quietly moved from just-another-guy in world shooting to, as he puts it, "among the top of the top.'' Just getting to the Olympic finals requires a notable international impact; Saathoff's came at the 1998 World Championships when he won a silver medal. Because he said he intends to retire from shooting and seek full-time employment after today's finals, the feeling of urgency is amplified.
This is the culmination of more than a decade of competitive shooting for the son of Bill and Kris Saathoff of Sierra Vista. Adam is a graduate of Buena High School. As recently as three years ago, he was driving a UPS truck in Tucson, uncertain if he wanted to make a commitment to the Sydney Olympics or get on with life.
He got married to his high school sweetheart, Carrie, two years ago, and together they decided he would forever regret walking away without one more attempt at a gold medal.
"The difference in Adam from the Atlanta Olympics to now is very sharp,'' said Bill, an associate dean at Cochise Community College and a career hunting guide who taught his son to shoot at age 4. "He's confident. He's more mature. He's one of the cream of the crop.''
And he has a shot - 30 of them - to be the best in the world.
Contact Greg Hansen in Sydney by e-mail at ghansen@azstarnet.com.
U.S. softball out of contention
Australia send Americans to 3rd loss
By Greg Hansen
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
SYDNEY - Remember Tanya Harding, the softball mercenary from UCLA who pitched the Bruins past Arizona for the 1995 NCAA championship?
Harding conquered a mightier opponent today, holding the anemic-hitting, hit-the-panic-button USA softball team to five hits and striking out 18 in an epic 2-1, 13-inning victory that puts America's medal chances in serious jeopardy.
Australia won on a two-out, two-run homer by Peta Edebone in the bottom of the 13th after the U.S. managed to score its first run in 26 innings to take the lead.
The USA, 2-3, has now lost three consecutive games - 2-1 to Japan in 11 innings; 2-0 to China in 14 innings; and today's tense game. Next week's medal round will be comprised of the teams with the four best records in round-robin play. At 2-3, the USA might be in a hole that is too difficult to escape. It plays New Zealand tomorrow and Italy on Saturday and its best chance now is to finish fourth and hope to play better in the medal semifinals.
Japan is the team leader at 5-0.
Harding and USA pitcher Lisa Fernandez engaged in a remarkable pitching duel until the 13th. Then, similar to a 1996 Atlanta Olympics loss to the Aussies, an extra-inning home run sent Team USA to sudden defeat.
Fernandez was remarkable, striking out 25 and allowing one hit until Edebone's long homer to left in the 13th.
What happened to this once-powerful USA team that brought a 112-game winning streak into the Olympics and hadn't lost consecutive games in international play since 1983?
It hasn't been able to hit.
With the exception of former Arizona All-American outfielder Leah O'Brien, the USA is batting .111 in three games, with a lone extra base hit. That's 14 hits in 37 innings.
O'Brien, who had two more hits yesterday, is batting .384 in the 0-3 streak, with five hits. But no one else on the U.S. team has more than three hits. Fernandez, thought to be the world's best softball player, is 0 for 18 in the Olympics. Power-hitting catcher Stacey Nuveman of UCLA is 1 for 13.
USA Baseball CEO 'too nervous to sit'
By Greg Hansen
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
SYDNEY - Five minutes before last night's USA-South Korea baseball game, Tucsonan Paul Seiler occupied his familiar position: Standing, pacing, in the stands behind home plate.
"Too nervous to sit," said the CEO of Tucson-based USA Baseball. "I've got a lot of energy to burn."
Team USA won its third consecutive game of the Sydney Olympics, dominating the South Koreans 4-0, but the tension persists. On Saturday, Seiler will stand behind home plate and pace when the USA meets two-time defending gold-medalist Cuba, the most anticipated baseball game of the Olympics.
Seiler is essentially the general manager of Team USA. He hired Tommy Lasorda as the club's manager. He put together the committees that selected the 24-man roster, and was one of those with final discretion. He assembled the 25-person support staff of scouts, advisers and other assorted front office positions.
Now comes the difficult part: winning a gold medal.
"Second place wouldn't feel as good here as it felt last summer at the Pan Am Games," he said. "All we needed to do last summer was finish second to qualify for the Olympics. The only goal here is to win it all."
The team assembled by Seiler and a committee of major-league GMs and scouts has thus far shown to be much more than a maligned bunch of career minor-leaguers. Outfielder Mike Neill, whose 13th-inning home run beat Japan in an epic opening game on Sunday, was long ago carefully evaluated by Seiler.
"Neilly was the hero of the Pan Am Games, with the winning hit to get us in the Olympics," said Seiler. "But he's not here because he got that hit. He's here because we thoroughly evaluated more than 600 possible players. (Seattle Mar-iners GM) Pat Gillick strongly recommended Neill, as well as (Tucson's) Anthony Sanders. When Pat says something, we listen. These guys aren't mistakes."
Seiler would like to say that it was his idea to hire Lasorda, who has been a magnet for international publicity, drawing more attention to Olympic baseball than any time previously. But he hired Lasorda, he said, simply because he was available. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig told Seiler that Lasorda's high profile might serve USA Baseball's cause better than, say, former Anaheim Angels manager Terry Collins, who also received significant consideration.
"What I like about Tommy is that he has struck a chord with our players, even the older players like (30-year-old) Ernie Young," said Seiler. "Tommy will say 10 things, many of them about patriotism, and the players roll with that. But sooner or later, one of those 10 things stick and hit home. Tommy's job is to focus and prepare these guys. He's done very well."
It's conceivable that the USA baseball team for the 2004 Athens Olympics will be more highly rated than this one. The Athens Olympics are expected to be played in midsummer, which would allow Seiler to avoid conflicts with major-league teams and the 40-man roster expansions of September.
"This is out of my control now, the same way a general manager (in the big leagues) can only do so much," Seiler said. "We've reached a point where they've got to go out and play."
Seiler lives in the Olympic Athletes' Village, rooming with several USA players. He makes sure they have the amenities necessary to operate without problems. He does everything from help them get their laptop computers online, to make sure they can phone home to talk with family members.
Before last night's 4-0 win over South Korea, Seiler hustled outside Olympic Stadium to find Tucsonans Benjie and Phyllis Sanders and make sure they had tickets to the game. He found them, supplied the tickets, and had time to chat with Anthony Sanders Jr., son of the USA outfielder from Santa Rita High School.
"This will all be over in a week," he said. "But it's just like we're getting started."
Arizona buzz
Schoeman
Diana Munz
Pat Murphy
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By Greg Hansen
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
SYDNEY - Arizona sophomore Roland Schoeman qualified for tonight's semifinals of the 50-meter freestyle in what might be the single-most-competitive swimming event of the Sydney Olympics.
Schoeman, who was once the world's fastest swimmer this year, was clocked in 22.53 seconds. But to reach the final group of eight, he'll have to swim faster - and he knows it.
Cal's Bart Kizierowski had the preliminaries' fastest time at 22.05, but Gary Hall Jr. (22.14), Russian Alexander Popov (22.15), Cal's Anthony Ervin (22.24) and Dutch sensation Pieter van den Hoogenband (22.32) all beat Schoeman, among others.
Although Schoeman trains under UA coaches Frank Busch and Rick DeMont, South African swimming coach Wayne Riddin said yesterday that perhaps the treatment of Schoeman and two other South African swimmers - the UA's Ryk Neethling and Nebraska's Penny Heyns - who have not done well here should be reviewed.
South Africa required each to return home for a camp in late June, two months after the South African Olympic trials.
"Maybe we shouldn't have called on them to do that," Riddin said. "I could see their training being disrupted. Maybe we should have said, 'see you at the Olympics' and left it alone."
Schoeman and Neethling also traveled to Canada in August to compete against the Canadian national team. They trained strictly in Tucson for the final month before coming to Australia.
Neethling begins preparations for the anticipated 1,500-meter showdown against Australians Kieren Perkins and Grant Hackett, and USC's Eric Vendt, in tomorrow's preliminaries. The finals are Saturday.
Notes
* UA freshman recruit Diana Munz added to her silver medal in the women's 400 freestyle by earning a gold medal in last night's 2x400 freestyle relay. Munz swam the second leg. The USA was sixth when she started, second when she finished.
"I've never been on a national relay team," said Munz, who lives in Cleveland. "I was almost shocked when they told me I was on the team."
* Outfielder Anthony Sanders of Tucson went 0 for 1 in last night's 4-0 victory over South Korea. He was a defensive replacement in the eighth inning.
Sanders is expected to get his first Olympic start tomorrow night against the Italians, who are scheduled to start a left-handed pitcher. The pitching matchup for Saturday's game against Cuba is unknown.
* Arizona State baseball coach Pat Murphy led the Dutch team to a major 4-2 upset of Cuba yesterday. It was Cuba's first loss in 21 Olympic games. A week earlier in an exhibition game on the Australian Gold Coast, Murphy's Dutch team upset Team USA 6-3.
"I'm so proud to be part of it," he said. "For a long time the Dutch haven't gotten any respect."
Murphy, who was born in Holland, coaches a team that includes three former major-leaguers: outfielder Hensley Meulens, an ex-Diamondback and Sidewinder; Rikkert Faneyte; and Robert Eenhoorn.
Contact Greg Hansen in Sydney by e-mail at ghansen@azstarnet.com
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With three hours to kill yesterday, I took the train to Sydney Harbor and got my first glimpse of Olympic mania outside the Olympic complex. It was fascinating to see the train platforms at Redfern, Straithfield and North Sydney. They were teeming with people bound for the Olympic Village. Queues - that's Aussie for "lines" - were extraordinarily long. And that was just for those with tickets. You cannot get through the many security barriers into Olympic Park unless you have a ticket to an event for that day. Imagine what's going to break loose tomorrow when track-and-field competition begins. I just hope I can find the bus that gets me there.
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