Flying HighLi Xiaoshuang unseated Vitaly Scherbo to become China's first gold medalist in the all-aroundby Johnette Howard
It was just a snapshot moment, the sort that lasts only an instant. But the fearlessness it signified was important: Chinese gymnast Li Xiaoshuang was soaring above the high bar with abandon, his face serene and his chalked hands outstretched as if he knew—just knew—that when he regripped the bar he would rejuvenate China's wobbling gymnastics reputation and beat back Belarus's Vitaly Scherbo and Russia's Alexei Nemov, the past and future kings of men's gymnastics who were breathing down Li's neck like a hot draft from hell
Li flew through the
Only a hair's breadth separated the three men in the race for the individual all-around gold medal—that Li knew. China's pratfall to a silver medal in the team competition on Monday flitted through his mind too. But before Li started his final routine of last night's seesaw battle at the Georgia Dome, Chinese coach Huang Yubin sent Li off toward the high bar with an exhortation: "Look forward. Press ahead. If you look backward, you may fail. Remember: Only hope lies ahead."
And so did the gold medal. When Li came back to earth—sticking his twisting dismount as though his stocking feet had been staple-gunned to the floor—he bounded off the mat as China's first Olympic all-around champion.
Li's 9.787 high-bar score leapfrogged him past Nemov and into first place by a mere .049 of a point—58.423 points to Nemov's 58.374, the latter weighted down by a slight flub in the floor exercise less than 30 feet from where Li flew on the high bar.
Nothing could dampen Li's enthusiasm about the come-from-behind victory—not even some scalding complaints by Scherbo, the displaced all-around champion of the 1992 Olympics, who had to settle for the bronze this time. Scherbo promptly launched blasts at both Li, whom he dislikes, and the Olympic judges, whom he blamed for the .226 points that separated him from Li.
Scherbo pulled up the rear with a bronze and criticized the scoring.
photograph by
"I was shocked [at his score]," said Scherbo, who won six gold medals at the Barcelona Games and arrived in Atlanta hoping, even boasting, of breaking the men's record of eight career gymnastics golds set by Sawao Kato of Japan (1968 to 1976). But in the four years since Barcelona, the landscape of men's gymnastics had changed.
China, not Russia or one of its former republics, won the last two team world championships. Li, a 5'2", 123-pound sparrow, came to Atlanta as a favorite in the all-around, along with Nemov, a 20-year-old prodigy who competed magnificently here despite an unspecified left-shoulder injury that he says will require surgery after the Games. Even the American men were grabbing headlines last night with an unexpected showing of two top-10 finishes in the all-around: John Roethlisberger was seventh and Blaine Wilson 10th.
Judging from Scherbo's tart comments, he doesn't much care for the new world order that now exists. Li, 22, and Scherbo, 24, have been trading swipes since the 1995 world championships in Sabae, Japan. There Li said he was more concerned about fending off a challenge from Nemov than from Scherbo, and Scherbo has been doing a slow burn ever since.
When asked to assess Li's performance last night, Scherbo sarcastically said, "Oh, he's improved a lot [since Sabae]. He's got a little more culture. He's now modest. Maybe his mother and father told him how to live with a world championship." Asked to rate last night's judging, Scherbo hissed, "Poor."
If Scherbo's lack of grace bothered Li or curdled his joy, the Chinese star didn't show it on the interview-room dais the gymnasts shared. Nor did he seem especially concerned when Scherbo made the Schwarzenegger-like promise that he'll be a factor on Sunday and Monday in the individual-apparatus finals. "I'm very excited because a gold medal in the individual all-around has been my target for 10 years," said Li. And if Scherbo doesn't like it?
Let him talk. Let him talk.
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