Gymnast Patterson all-around golden
ATHENS – Just as Paul Hamm crowned himself an American king of men’s Olympic gymnastics on a previous night, the United States’ Carly Patterson on Thursday night became the queen of the women’s all-around.
“I don’t even know what to say right now,” said Patterson, a 16-year-old from whom this sport was brought to Allen, Texas, by way of Baton Rouge, La. “I’m just so excited and happy. You dream about this your whole life and then you win the gold medal. And it’s just amazing.”
Entering the start of that fourth rotation, Patterson was guarding a 26 hundredths of a point lead over Svetlana Khorkina – every inch the Russian diva as a 2000 Olympic champion on the uneven bars of the individual event finals.
Khorkina, second up on the floor, earned only a 9.562 score. When Patterson took her starting pose on the same event, as the final competitor on her final apparatus, she needed a 9.536 to win.
Patterson ripped off a huge first tumbling pass, bigger second and third ones. On her final pass, Patterson bent slightly at the waist upon landing, held the finish and came up beaming with a smile that could have lighted every corner of the Athenian night.
Even before the judges rewarded Patterson with a 9.712 score, everyone in the arena knew this most prestigious event of women’s gymnastics at the 2004 Summer Olympics was going to wind up with a gold medal around Patterson’s neck, a laurel wreath upon her head.
“Oh my God! It is so exciting,” said U.S. women’s coach Kelli Hill. “Men’s and women’s all-around champions!”
Hamm had rallied from a disastrous fall on the vault with a masterful high bar routine to overcome Korea’s Kim Dae Eun. Patterson held her turf, and did it so convincingly that even Khorkina did not wait for the posting of the score before smiling ruefully, and starting a slow walk down the side of the arena toward her teammates.
American teammate Courtney Kupets, obviously bothered by a sore right leg on the way to a ninth-place finish in the all-around, knew it was over as well.
“She had such an awesome floor routine,” Kupets said. “There was not much they could take off. It was pretty much in her hands.”
Patterson started the evening off with her poorest score of the event, a 9.375 vault. Khorkina and bronze medalist China’s Zhang Nan – on the same rotation as Patterson all night - bracketed Patterson’s score. Khorkina earned a 9.462, Zhang a 9.325.
Next up for the eventual top three was the uneven bars. The rating was the same. Khorkina earned a 9.725, Patterson a 9.575 and Zhang a 9.462.
Momentum swung on the third rotation, the balance beam.
First up on that event, Patterson nailed a 9.725. Zhang hung tough with a 9.662. Khorkina then cracked, wobbling twice, and the judges were harsh, giving her only a 9.462.
Before Patterson stepped onto the floor exercise podium, her personal coach gave her his final advice.
“You’ve got to compete with herself,” Evgeny Marchenko told Patterson. “Not with Sventlana, not with anybody.”
Patterson responded succinctly.
“I can do it,” she assured.
Then she did, becoming just the fourth all-around women’s Olympic champion in U.S. history, and the first since Mary Lou Retton ruled American hearts and the Olympic gymnastics world in 1984.