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New tricks Remaining vets steal show at gymnastics trials
BOSTON (AP) -- What's left of the Magnificent Seven no doubt has the experience. And they've shown, for the most part, that they have the tricks. What they might not have is a chance. At least not all three of them, anyway. Amy Chow finished second in the first round of the Olympic trials Friday night, solidifying her bid for a trip to the Sydney Games. Shannon Miller and Dominique Dawes picked up ground, but they're still not in the top six overall. And six appears to be the magic number for Bela Karolyi, head of the selection committee that will pick the team. "Very unlikeable," Karolyi said when asked the chances of Chow, Miller and Dawes all making the team. "(I'd hoped) to see a split participation between the 1996ers and the new generation. But the new generation has really, really proved extremely strong." Just take a look at the standings. National champion Elise Ray was her usual solid, spectacular self and kept her stranglehold on first place with 54.081 points. The rest of the new kids had some bobbles and wobbles, but they managed to stay up top. Kristen Maloney rebounded from a botched handstand on the uneven bars to finish third Friday and is second overall with 53.376 points. Jamie Dantzscher took a lunge forward on her balance beam dismount but is still fourth overall with 52.715 points. Morgan White climbed to fifth overall despite big hops forward on each of her vaults. And Vanessa Atler is hanging onto sixth even though she had the scariest fall of the night, landing flat on her back on her beam dismount. "I'd be very happy with the team just in the order they are now," Karolyi said. "We have four extremely strong all-arounders. And we do have a Morgan White and Vanessa Atler who can really function as openers. They can solve our weaknesses in a variety of events." But what about the Mag Seven gals? While Chow, now third overall with 53.045 points, is probably safe, Dawes and Miller are looking a little iffy. Dawes made the biggest climb of the night, getting as high as third in Friday night's event before dropping to sixth. She's in seventh overall with 51.751 points. Miller is way down in 11th overall, but that's because she withdrew from nationals after only one event because of a hairline crack in her right leg. Instead of three scores like everyone else has, she only has one. Except for a fall on the vault, Miller had a solid meet and was seventh for the night. But that fall was a big one. On a vault she usually nails, Miller landed short, couldn't set her feet and plopped down on the mat as Karolyi winced. She nailed her second one, but scored just an 8.893. "Shannon is right there," Karolyi said. "It's very, very much going to depend on her performance in the coming days." Finals are Sunday afternoon. Weighted scores from trials (60 percent) and last month's U.S. Gymnastics Championships (40 percent) will be combined and used to rank the gymnasts. Karolyi and the selection committee will then pick the six-woman squad. They aren't beholden to the scores. "I can tell you the ones who are making mistakes, they're going to come very, very strong from tonight," Karolyi said. Ray and Chow can't get much better than they were Friday. Ray's uneven bars are, simply, amazing. While other gymnasts pirouette on the top bar by turning around on their hands, Ray pulls hers off the bars and turns her body while she's in the air. That slick move helped her earn a 9.812, her highest score of the night. She only had one score below a 9.5, and her 9.499 on the vault came pretty close. "I felt good, but there are still things I need to fix," she said. "I see each little part getting better. It's getting there, but it's not all the way there yet." Chow does some of the most difficult tricks around, yet she makes them look as easy as the stuff that's done in ninth-grade gym class. On the balance beam, she does a back somersault with a twist, keeping her legs piked, and lands squarely on the 4-inch beam without even the hint of a wobble. Her only problem was on floor, where she stepped out-of-bounds, but she said that won't happen again. "I had a good day today," she said. "I felt pretty calm. I felt like I was ready to go out there and have fun." Miller didn't have as much fun as she hoped. Her fall on the vault stunned her, and then judges downgraded the start value of her balance beam routine. Instead of starting with a chance to score a 10.0 on beam, the highest score she could earn was a 9.7 because she wasn't given credit for one of her trademark moves. Miller had a wobble on the beam and earned a 9.287. "What I can control is doing the best I can," she said. "When it comes down to it, they'll pick the best team."
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