US gymnastics coach declares war

Sydney: What everyone else in the gymnastics world calls the podium, Bela Karolyi calls the ring.

Where others see a sport of beauty and grace, he sees a fist-fight.

As Karolyi prepares his tiny troops for another Olympic battle, he explained to everyone on Thursday - this is war.

"It's going to be a fist-fight out there," bellowed Karolyi, lured out of retirement and off his Texas ranch to resurrect a United States women's programme that has floundered in his absence.

"The field is very strong, it is probably going to be one of the most disputed Olympic Games in the last 20 years."

While, the burly Romanian would look more at home barking instructions in the face of rugby prop instead of staring down elfin gymnasts, Karolyi has become the sport's dominant figure over the last two decades bullying, prodding and willing an all-star list of athletes, including Nadia Comaneci, Mary-Lou Retton, Kerri Strug and Dominique Moceanu, to the top of the Olympic podium.

Atlanta success

But what is generally regarded as Karolyi's greatest coaching accomplishment occurred four years ago in Altanta, when he guided the US women to their first team gold medal.

The pictures of Strug, hopping around on one foot with a badly injured ankle after nailing her final vault to give the Americans their historic win, is one of the lasting images of the Games.

Scooping up his injured gymnast, Karolyi tenderly carried Strug off the mat and kept on walking into retirement.

It was that golden touch, that persuaded US gymnastics officials to try to convince the often outspoken Karolyi to return to the sport as national team co-ordinator."By job description I'm different," said Karolyi. "All my life I have been an active coach behind my athletes.

"I had a great time and I was free to do crazy things.

"But now I am restricted by my position as national team co-ordinator.

"My direct presence behind my athletes was a very important motivating force.

"Direct communication, even on other side of the ring, was important, it gave them the boost and an edge to overcome the difficulties of the competition."

The consummate motivator, Karolyi's gymnasts would often perform to the limit to earn one of their coach's famous bearhugs as much as to win a medal.

But the current crop of American medal hopefuls, that includes two returning members of the 1996 squad that became known as Magnificent Seven, will not benefit from Karolyi's exuberance.

New restrictions

New restrictions that will allow only coaches and not team leaders onto the competition floor will force Karolyi, the General Patton of women's gymnastics, out of the trenches and into the stands.

"This time I will not be around the ring, for this time not even outside the ring," said Karolyi, who emigrated from Romania to the United States in 1981 with only change in his pocket and is now living the American dream on his 485-hectare (1,200-acre) Texas ranch.

"For the first time I will watch from the stands which is definitely frustrating.

"I feel like I'm handicapped, not able to provide the positive influence that I have been able to do at all the other Games."



(c) Reuters Limited.