THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604280199
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Friday, at something called the Olympic Media Summit, the voice of innocence could be heard from the front of a room at the Hyatt Hotel.
The afternoon air was crackling with sketchy reports. Federal agents had uncovered a plot by a rural Georgia bomb-making militia group.
Were the bombs bound for the Summer Games? Yes? No? Maybe? It got people buzzing about Olympic security.
``I'm not really worried about it,'' said Dominique Moceanu, America's best hope in women's gymnastics. ``Who would want to spoil an Olympic dream? Who would want to spoil something like that?''
The guilelessness of her voice reflects the Olympic ideal. The Olympics, after all, represent the suspension of reality.
Take the notion that the Games are about bringing nations together. How many times have we heard this?
If it didn't seem to work quite that way after Sarajevo and Seoul, is that any reason to relinquish the dream?
Cutthroat competition goes on all over the world, all the time. Only at the Olympics does an ego-driven, single-track desire for gold, silver and bronze gewgaws become a sacred quest.
Moceanu could be the poster child for Olympic innocence. With her squeaky voice and round, cherubic face, she looks to be, at 4-foot-7, every inch the precocious 8-year-old.
As she sits in an armchair at the front of the room, Moceanu's feet don't touch the floor, don't come close. There is something mildly eerie about that, seeing as how she actually is a 14 1/2-year-old ninth grader.
Part of the Olympic illusion is portraying tough, sinewy gymnasts as doll-like. This is a tougher sell than it used to be, though. Starting at the 1992 Barcelona Games, a light was shined on the darker side of the image.
Now we know more of the entire story. Of gymnasts pressured by their coaches to remain unnaturally thin. Of lives tormented by anorexia and bulimia.
Of diets and lengthy, intense workout regimens designed to retard the development of breasts and hips.
And of children who, at the urging of their coaches, push themselves too hard, often dislocating bones and tearing tendons.
At the '92 Games, some of the women gymnasts resembled starving sparrows. The burnout of the athletes and the grimness of the competition resulted in a backlash against gymnastics that persuaded even Bela Karolyi, coach of seven Olympic champions, to retire from international competition.
Now he returns with a performer who inspires comparisons with Nadia Comaneci, Karolyi's greatest pixie protege.
Moceanu is a first-generation American of Romanian gymnast parents, who has been coached by Karolyi since the age of 9.
In a sport infamous for pushy stage parents, the Moceanus were extreme, asking Karolyi to train their daughter at his Houston incubator when she was 3. Karolyi said to hold off. Even he couldn't handicap the potential of a toddler.
Somehow, Dominique seems to have survived intact.
``Her greatest asset,'' Karolyi said Friday, ``is her youthish excitement.''
``There's not too many kids that have fun out there and smile,'' Moceanu said. ``I always try to smile.''
Sitting in the presence of such smiling innocence brought a bright, almost youthish, grin to Karolyi's broad face. When he speaks, though, Karolyi shows that the lessons of Barcelona may have been replaced by politically correct rhetoric.
``People would rather see these athletes running around on the floor as young women than as little girls,'' he said, though this contradicts the best available evidence.
After slouching from the spotlight, the Transylvanian Bear is back with a phenom who looks like she's out on a pass from a day-care center. by CNB