DAY 6 WHEN ONLY GOLD IS GOOD ENOUGH
The gymnasts make a big show of, what would you call it,
adhesion. On rings and the horizontal bar they wear huge grips,
clawlike things that improve their safety. And on the other
apparatuses they are so chalked up that at the slightest touch
they release small clouds, like pollen almost.
Yet watching Vitali Scherbo, the most decorated Olympic gymnast
ever, storm from the podium, slipping the bronze medal from his
neck, you realized that the real trick might not be hanging on
but letting go.
The Belarussian was furious, spiteful. The last meet of his life
had been sullied by judging that was "poor" and a medal that was
"of the wrong color." Six golds in Barcelona and they dare give
him this ... thing. Moreover, he was outraged at the scoring
that the all-around winner, China's Li Xiaoshuang, had received.
"I saw his scores on [parallel] bars and [horizontal] bar,"
Scherbo said. "I was shocked."
The two had gone at it before; Li, the reigning world champion,
once called Scherbo's magnificence on rings into question. The
reigning Olympic champion did not appreciate that and had
craftily carped after his rival ever since. Done right, this
sort of back-and-forth can be elevated to the level of feud, and
all are the better entertained for it. But, alas, Scherbo would
exit the sport after the individual event finals, and, besides,
Li did not seem to have the heart to fight any longer. ("Oh,
he's improved a lot," said Scherbo of Li's new humility. "Now he
has more culture.")
But Scherbo's bitterness, his inability to let go, may not have
had everything to do with Li. It was also the natural
disappointment of any great athlete at the end, and Scherbo's
was compounded by an unusual circumstance. He had given up
gymnastics after his wife, Irina, was critically injured in a
car crash in December '95; only when she awoke from her
monthlong coma and begged him to return to his sport--by then,
15 pounds overweight, he could no longer do even a
handstand--did he resume training.
His pledge to her was specific, and maybe his disappointment at
breaking a promise so important was understandable. No gold. "In
my family we don't know of medals of any other color," he said.
So hard to let go.
COLOR PHOTO: AL TIELEMANS China's Li rose to the occasion on the horizontal bar to win gold in the all-around and left a furious Belarussian in the dust. [Li Xiaoshuang in midair during gymnastics]
COLOR PHOTO: AL TIELEMANS For the embittered Scherbo the bronze medal chafed, representing a broken promise to his wife and an agonizing loss to rival Li. [Li Xiaoshuang and Vitali Scherbo during medal ceremony]
COLOR PHOTO: V.J. LOVERO No one had to remind the competitors in women's judo that the Olympic movement is all about joining together as one. [Two women in judo match]
COLOR PHOTO: ROBERT BECK Lori Endicott and the U.S. women's volleyball team had their sights set on a medal, despite a loss to China in the preliminaries. [Lori Endicott playing volleyball]