Olga. Nadia. Mary Lou. Their first names alone are the way we remember them, the last names seemingly too tedious and weighty for ones so petite. Olga Korbut was the scrawny, pig-tailed brunet at the 1972 Munich Games who, with her double-jointed contortions and infectious grin, convinced us that human hearts beat within the bodies of robotic Soviet athletes. Four years later at the Montreal Games, it was a long-limbed brooding Rumanian, Nadia Comaneci, who stole hearts by posting the first perfect 10s ever in Olympic gymnastics competition. Then in Los Angeles in 1984, American Mary Lou Retton bounced + into our living rooms with her big vault and still bigger smile, assuring her place in the pantheon of gymnastics greats and on boxes of Wheaties.
Come the Summer Games, as sure as there will be botched routines and disputed scores, it is a fair bet that an agile sprite in a colorful leotard will emerge as a sweetheart of Seoul. For reasons as difficult to identify as the gradations of excellence that turn silver to gold, sports fans quadrennially bestow their affection on an elfin gymnast. Perhaps it is the daunting mix of skills: the daring speed and height of the vault, the elegance and precision of the balance beam, the strength and fluidity of the uneven parallel bars, the showmanship and gravity subversion of the floor exercise. Or perhaps it is the sheer beauty of a sport that seems as artistic as it is athletic.
Certainly, the charm of the tiny competitors cannot be dismissed. How, we wonder, can ones so young and so small compete with such fierce determination and concentration? The commentators may speak of "women's gymnastics," but these are adolescent girls. If the 1987 world championships, held last October in Rotterdam, are any indication of things to come, the four events will be dominated by four teenagers: Rumania's Aurelia Dobre and Daniela Silivas, and the Soviet Union's Elena Shushunova and Svetlana Baitova. Most of them weigh less than 90 lbs. and do not clear 5 ft.
But don't start chanting "Aurelia" or "Elena" yet. If gymnastics is among the most beautiful of the summer sports, it is also among the cruelest. Titles come and go overnight, lost by the most negligible slips or breaks of form on an apparatus. In Rotterdam, Dobre surprised even her own teammates by capturing the all-around title, nudging aside co-defending World Champions Shushunova and Oksana Omelianchik of the Soviet Union, who placed second and fifth respectively. Silivas, who had emerged as the 1987 European champion just five months earlier, fell to third following bobbles on the uneven bars and balance beam.
Injuries may take competitors out of the running. Sometimes the enemy is a sudden growth spurt that adds unwanted height and weight. No one knows that better than American Kristie Phillips, who just two years ago was touted as "the new Mary Lou." Then Phillips grew 4 in. and put on 15 lbs. Now, at 16, she is in the disappointing position of being a second alternate: two members of the U.S. team would have to withdraw for her to compete in Seoul.