U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS NEWS

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Magnificent �three� rusty

Ray wins first women�s national title as new
kids hold their own

ST. LOUIS, July 29 �  Forget nostalgia. If the Magnificent Seven want to go to Sydney, the new kids are going to make them earn their trip.

WHILE THE 1996 Olympians were showing some rust to go with their gold, Elise Ray, Kristen Maloney, Vanessa Atler and Jamie Dantzscher proved they�re up to the task of bringing home a medal from the Sydney Games.
       �Me, Elise, Jamie and Vanessa came out and showed �em we�re still here,� Maloney said. �We�re still doing gymnastics.�

Ray ended Maloney�s two-year run as national champion at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships on Saturday night, sealing her victory with a vault she�d never done in competition before.
       She nailed the vault, sending several USA Gymnastics officials out of their seats at the Kiel Center. Ray came off the podium with a big smile on her face and was immediately swallowed up in a hug from coach Kelli Hill.
       �Elise loves competition. She likes the excitement and the thrill,� Hill said. �I said afterward, �That was not planned.� And she said, �I know. I loved it.� It makes it that much more exciting for her.�
       Ray�s final score of 76.987 was just 0.275 points ahead of Maloney, who finished with 76.712 points. Dantzscher was third with 75.700, and Atler was fourth with 75.412. Alyssa Beckerman, who missed last year�s world championships because of a wrist injury, was fifth.

       �This feels amazing. It was a big dream of mine because it was my last championship,� said Ray, who will attend Michigan on an athletic scholarship next year. �It�s a feeling that�s just amazing.�
       Shannon Miller and Jaycie Phelps skipped Saturday�s all-around finals with injuries and will petition for a spot at next month�s Olympic trials. That cut the Magnificent Seven to three � Dominique Moceanu, Dominique Dawes and Amy Chow � and they were less than magnificent.
       Chow slipped from third to sixth, finishing with 75.175 points. Dominique Moceanu finished in eight place with 73.424 points, and Dawes was right behind her with 73.412.
       �They had their time,� said Dantzscher, a member of the world team last year. �They can really help the team because they�re so experienced. But I think it�s cool to get new faces on the team and get new people recognized.�
       The top 12 finishers at the nationals advanced to next month�s Olympic trials, where Bela Karolyi will head a committee that will choose a six-member team. Performances at nationals and trials will be used to rank the gymnasts, but they won�t be binding.
       The 1996 crew are still in the running for Olympic berths, especially since the team will include two or three event specialists. But they�re going to have to show more of their old sparkle at the Olympic trials.
       Moceanu, competing on a sprained left ankle, was solid but not spectacular, scoring one 8.9 and not earning anything higher than a 9.425.
       �I�ve only been doing my routines for two months. It took me four months before that to get in shape,� said Moceanu, who began training in January. �I moved up two spots. You can�t ask for more than that.�

       Dawes, who only began training seriously in April, had Karolyi pumping his fists and high-fiving anyone who got near him after a stunning routine on the uneven bars that moved her from 13th place to ninth.
       But she struggled on the balance beam and vault. A shaky landing of her aerial front somersault forced her to jump off the beam. She landed on her seat on her first vault, and Hill gave her a long, reassuring hug afterward.
       Chow started the night in third place and moved steadily downward. She took hops on each of her vaults and almost fell off the balance beam, drawing gasps from the crowd as she wobbled.
       Her biggest trouble came on the uneven bars, where she won her individual silver medal at the Atlanta Olympics. Chow was back somersaulting from the high bar to the low bar when she missed her catch and crashed into the low bar.
       The youngsters, meanwhile, were holding things together quite nicely.
       Ray�s mother was a dancer and her daughter has obviously inherited her grace. She practically floated through her routines, making one difficult one after another look easy. Even her mistakes looked good.
       On the uneven bars, her hands appeared to slip on a release move on the top bar. It could have been disastrous � a slip has sent plenty of other gymnasts crashing to the floor � but Ray managed to grab the bar and continued on as if nothing happened.
       On the beam, she did her aerial back handsprings, pirouettes, somersaults with such ease she might as well have been doing them on the floor instead of an apparatus that�s only four inches wide and four feet off the ground.
       But she saved her best for last. Knowing she needed a 9.150 or better to win, Ray told Hill she wanted to do a Yurchenko double full � a 1� somersault with a double twist in the layout position. The only problem was, she�d never done it in competition and hadn�t even practiced it on a hard surface since knee surgery in June.
       �I said, �OK, let�s go find the vault number,� Hill said.
       Ray did it perfectly and scored a 9.425 to win the title.
       Maloney performed with the swagger that goes along with her two national titles. On her floor exercise, done to a series of jazzy piano numbers, she practically strutted on her dance sequences. When she finished, she allowed a little smile while her coaches cheered.
       �I�m really happy with how I did,� said Maloney, who was competing for the first time since shoulder and shin surgery. �It would have been nice to win again, but it wasn�t the most important thing I set out to do. I want to keep improving with every meet.�
       Atler � who has a bubbly personality to rival that of Mary Lou Retton � had Karolyi smiling and clapping every time she was on the podium. On her floor routine, he was clapping along as she whipped across the floor to the strains of Russian folk music.
       Dantzscher, a world team member last year, might have been the surprise finisher of the night. She stuck every one of her routines and finished with a solid beam routine that sent her hurtling into her coach�s arms when she finished.
       �I was just relieved. Total relief after I finished,� she said. �I want to make that team so bad and I�m working my butt off.�