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THANKS TO NBCOLYMPICS FOR THIS ARTICLE ABOUT GYMNASTIC COMPETITION,THANKS CARLOS

Gymnastics embraces the 'DH'
By William Murray

While the concept of an event specialist might be new to the world of gymnastics, it's been around sports for decades.
Whether you like it or not, baseball's American League has had a designated hitter -- a slugger who usually bats in place of the pitcher -- since the 1970s, and the situational substitution has become a key facet of professional football.
Hockey has penalty killers, and soccer is known for its late-game substitutions.
Still, there is a newness to the concept in gymnastics. To review its short history, U.S. gymnastics officials reacted to a change in the format for the Olympic competition by announcing a few weeks ago that the selection process for the 2000 Olympics had changed.
Performance at the Olympic Trials and the national championships still will be used to determine the top four slots on the men's squad. However, the top three women only "must be considered" for their squad. The entire women's team will be chosen by a committee with an eye toward scoring the highest possible total on each apparatus in the team event.
A separate committee will choose the final two members of the men's squad with the same goal in mind.
These would be the so-called event specialists, and the new process has altered the thinking of those in the sport.
"Before you were forced to have six strong all-eventers," said women's national team coordinator Bela Karolyi. "Now you can have four of them, and two very powerful event specialists, wild cards."
"You have to look at each athlete individually and maximize on their ability to help them make the team," said Mary Lee Tracy, whose Cincinnati gym has among its members Olympic hopefuls Morgan White, Alyssa Beckerman and Sierra Sapunar.
"With the girls that I'm training, each one of them has different qualities. But of course, you develop them all-around because the team is always going to want an athlete who can do four events."
"What you do when you know an athlete does have a very strong event, you want to develop it -- especially if it's a weak team event, because your athlete could make the team for that reason."
Coach Kelli Hill, whose gymnasts include Elise Ray, admitted she was a little nervous when she first learned of the new procedure.
"When the selection procedures first came out, I thought it was a big concern," she said. "But after being in training camps month after month, I don't think there's going to be a political game. They are strictly looking for who can help the USA team."
At the recent USOC Media Summit in Houston, talk about the U.S. women's team's weakness focused on two events, the vault and the beam.
"Everybody talks about vaulting," said Tracy, "and vaulting is an area where we do need some strength, but at the Senior Pacific Alliance, which was the most current team event, we were the weakest on the balance beam."
"So I think that's an area (where specialist might have a shot to make the U.S. Olympic Team) because beam makes or breaks a competition."
One of those potential candidates to be the beam specialist is Jaycie Phelps, a member of the 1996 women's Olympic Team that won gold. She's attempting to make a comeback after years of battling knee injuries.
"There are pros and cons to everything," said Phelps of the new selection procedure. "Definitely the pros are that the bars and the beam are my strongest event. They are the two I can train on every day really hard. I'm really confident in those two events."
Phelps said the new procedure could help one of the top all-around gymnasts who simply has a bad day at the trials.
"It's gonna be beneficial to anyone who happens to have a fluke mistake at the trials that cost them a spot on the team," she said. "For the past eight months we have been doing these training camps, and the selection committee has watched our training and knows what we are capable of. That's another pro; if something would happen at trials and it would cost us our No.1 athlete on the team, it simply won't happen."
The new selection procedure also could be used to add many intangible elements to the team, such as veteran leadership. But Shannon Miller, America's most decorated female gymnast, said she wasn't interested in being added merely as a captain and event specialist. Miller has come out of retirement to attempt to make her third Olympic Team.
"I've never been a captain of a team," she said. "I never really planned to be. I'm very good at being focused on what I'm doing and do the job the best that I can. I think that me doing my job out there on the floor is what helps the team the most."
Miller said she did not know if the new process will help her lock up a spot on the team.
"I don't know if it helps or hinders me," she said. "The goal is still the same: to do the very best on all four events that I possibly can in every competition leading up to the Olympic Games. That doesn't change, even though the procedure does."
"Right now it doesn't make too much of a difference. Come that night (of the Olympic Trials), it is going to make a difference to someone -- those on the bubble or a specialist. I hope not to be on the bubble or a specialist. I want to be a good, solid all-arounder."

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