Dominique Moceanu in ‘96 too! She was forced to train in a stress fracture for a while. That’s why karolyis loved Larry Nassar, he’d give the ok for injured gymnasts to compete
my god practically the whole magnificent seven are here! I love watching these old videos because you see such a maturity in the mag 7s performances...96 was truly the best gymnastics they ever did...they were ON IT!
For sure. I always have a problem with that! And nowadays it’s even worse. Especially at the Olympics. They barely show any other country! And they never do those sweet stories on the girls anymore. :(
The amazing names introduced in this competition that who will go on to be some of the very best crop of US gymnasts we'd ever seen up to this time period in gymnastics history. Awesomeness. Also it was also a great time because u could really see the coach-gymnast relationship with these girls! Miss this time.
It always cracks me up to see john tesh at these things. Also, Phar-Mor. They had enough money back in the day to sponsor this, but by the end of the 90s they were out of business. Those green and black leotards are on point.
Every Karolyi gymnast’s routine is like that 😂 AND Kim Z followed in his footsteps by embarrassing Ragan Smith with the same ridiculous hokey routines. 🤦🏼♀️
Did anyone else notice how Kim twisted so much quicker in the air on the second vault then in the first but stuck both of them? I wish sticks were as common now as they were back in the day
Quite interesting to watch knowing what we know about the way the karoylis coached. Using old equipment and hard landings no doubt contributed to unnecessary injuries. Also ruling through fear - not good.
@jennifer wilson finally someone else that agrees with me! Even kerri went back and never complained. They produced winners and all the older ones have never said one negative word. I get not every coaching style works for everyone but they always could have went to a different gym
@jennifer wilson All of your comments are laughable. It's clear you're a brainwashed political cult member who can't think outside of the rhetoric you swallow with no thought whatsoever.
@jennifer wilson funny that you are minimizing a system of abuse because the older generation were fine with it. 🤦🏻♂️… one of Bella’s former co partner stated in Romania Marta would smack gymnasts and physically abuse them, Moceanu explained she’d be called a fat pig and threatened with physical abuse, she was also ignored when she had a serious fracture right before the Olympics and if you notice nearly all of Karoly’s gymnasts right before the Olympics had major injuries that were ignored or downplayed. This isn’t about a younger generation being too weak it’s about NOT normalizing ABUSE anymore! Wake up lady!
@Katherine Keirns It burns me that he steals the credit for the gymnasts' success when he had little if anything to do with it. Moceanu in her book says she learned all her hard skills from Alexander Alexandrov until Karolyi canned him just before the '96 games to claim the credit for Dominique's success. Supposedly, according to that idiot John Tesh, Kerri Strug "began gymnastics with him and look at her now." Total bunk. She was 13 when she switched to Karolyis', 14 in her first olympics. He had nothing to do with her success, and a lot to do with how miserable she looked at her first olympics.
@@kikib8812 and yet, so many former gymnasts have bitched about how abusive she was. And I think Dominique cut off her relationship with Kelli Hill. Ungrateful women.
Yep. She flipped her car in May of '97, just before her birthday. Kim still pays tribute to her quite often in public speaking appearances and other forums.
Marieke D Her tire blew out in her Nissan Altima, causing her to hit a concrete barrier and then the car flipped. She was pronounced dead at the scene. She was on the way to have breakfast with her mother.
Olivia Lewis a lot of these girls were born the same year as me so I've always felt somewhat invested in their lives. I had not heard that she died ... that Is so sad :(
I much rather watch the routines of the 80's and 90's. The cumpolsaries had the gymnast fulfill flexibility and dance elements with acro series. It is artisti gymnastics after all. They are awesome to watch.
She did a split leap on beam with actual amplitude and 180 split, I almost fell over. Judges didn't seem to care about beam leaps in this era so no one bothered to do good ones. The only gymnast I can think of competing at the same time who actually tried to make the leaps something special would be Yang Bo.
@@Cmc995 I know, his choreography was an abomination, just hideous. All these talented gymnasts who could have achieved much better results internationally if they didn't have this lame arm waving and butt wiggling with no connection to the music whatsoever.
Don't you hate when you find out your missed great gym events way after they happened in your home town?? I'm in Chicago, and there are so many close and reasonable to drive to comps I have missed. erg! But I am going to Classics this July in Chicago! yay =)
I'm so glad gymnasts are no longer forced to be incredibly light. One nice thing that's come out of the focus on power more recently is that girls who are unhealthily thin (like most of these) can't stay in elite competition because they don't have enough strength. Most of these girls look gaunt. They're great gymnasts, but it's heartbreaking so see how thin they are!
It's amazing how you can tell who coached a gymnasts based on the gymnast's style of gymnastics. I didn't know Hilary Grinch but when I saw her run, I noticed that she ran just like Dominique Monceanu and guessed she was coached by Bela. I was right!
Watching this, I can't believe I ever used to love vaulting! SOOOOOO much could go wrong with the old horse design! I mean yeah, a lot can still go wrong - whoever came up with this event was absolutely insane - but it used to be so much worse.
I personally hated when they changed the vaults. The tongue ones where just starting to come in when I broke my back in gymnastics. I probably would have ended up liking them more for a yurchenko vault after a while but didnt get to use them much. I just remember being upset with the change lol. Definitely safer though.
I can't believe they used to hold these competitions without a podium for each apparatus. Making world-class gymnasts compete on the concrete floor seems to unprofessional and second-rate. Boy our meets have come a long way in 25 years.
When did they start putting things in podium? I only recently learned the difference. We're the international competitions back then on podium? This does look very amateur after watching things nowadays. It's weird because I know I watched gymnastics in the 80s and 90s and didn't see them as so rinky dink.
I've mocked it for years- I call it"Karolyi Khoreography". The most ham-fisted, cornball FX music.... And the choreo itself is really hokey. Compare the FX music and routines of Karolyi girls vs all others.
Whoa, I just got hit with a sudden wave of nostalgia. 😅 As I was watched Hilary Grivich walk back down the vaulting runway (10:07) it reminded me that we used to manually flip the numbers (or coaches would do it) to signal which vault we were going to perform. The 1990s was the decade when I began competing in the optional levels and even remember USGF rebranding itself to USAG after some controversies. (Sadly, prior to the Nasser fiasco.)
If Bela could tell the one Man "To HELL with it.", use his height and voice to intimidate grown Men, it made me cringe then and now how truly terrified Kim Zmeskal, others, especially Kerri Strug were of Him and Marta. Add a Young Woman who is easily intimidated, who wouldn't be with that Brute knocking them around, swearing at them, yelling at them, etc. He had his perfect Victims. Because they wouldn't dare to speak back to him. They would nod and probably said "Yes Sir/Ma'am" to Him and Marta.
I never realized how much Amanda Borden killed it at this meet. I watched it at the time but I was little and really was just watching for Kim Z. Kerri strug was way better than I remember too.
2 words: Bela Karolyi. He would intimidate judges and almost always challenge scores he didn’t see his gymnast deserved. You can see it plain as day in the ‘92 Olympic trials.
Kerri was like a diamond in the rough! So much potential aside from beam. The height on her vault was just great. And she landed her full-ins on floor so high--I bet she could have laid out that mount. Terrific!
I actually thought her bar score would have been a bit higher, but yes he didn't mind letting the judges know when he didn't agree with their scoring lol
Bella and Marta were MONSTERS. They abused and ignored abuse for so many years and ruined the lives of so many young women. They both should be serving life in jail.
She had great results before the Olimpics, so based on that, everyone had a lot of hopes for her (she got 2 gold medals at the Worls Champonships in '92 and was great here). Now I do not know if it is true or not, but aparantly she competed with a stress fracture in Barcelona, which would not be completely surprising for athelets at this level. They have one chance and they sometimes are willing to take the risk...
It was part of his performance for the cameras. He rehearsed and planned ahead his outbursts and antics. He checked where the cameras were and positioned himself for them
Marie Lee Tracy actually being more cringe than Bela. She's working harder for the camera and mic than Borden is on the actual events. Of course if Miller was competing Nunno would be giving Bela and MLT a run for their money with his own performance. I'm guessing Kelli Hill did the right thing and declined to be mic'd up for this event.
bigbennie96, I agree, I don’t think they were “close” but more like all each other had. Kerri was always in the shadow of her and the fact that they said Béla made her take out a big skill the year before that could’ve been high enough to beat Kim is outrageous. After 92 he retires and she goes to Steve Nunno where Shannon Miller was the star, bounces around for awhile and then finds out Béla is out of retirement and goes back to him only to be in Dom Moceanu’s shadow. I bet there was resentment there but it should’ve been aimed at the Károlyis...
Kerri has such an unfair road in gymnastics. She lived in the shadows forever. She often stated it was upsetting that she trained harder than Kim, but Kim performed better than her in competitions.
Bella is such as ass! He blamed Betty Akino for her injuries by saying she didn't work hard enough! Both he and Martha ruled with intimidation and bullying. So glad they're gone.
yup. ditto. loved awesome dawesome! every time I go back and watch these old comps, I can't help but feel awful for her. she would either get robbed with scoring or have bad luck. one of the GOATs IMO
Well, she did win EVERY event at the 94 US Championships. I remember talking to Dwight Normile, editor of IG, on the phone and him saying 'she won everything' ...I said 'you mean EVERY EVENT?' and he said, 'YUP....'
I agree. Look at gymnasts now. They are in their early 20’s some of the and do well and sometimes better than the teens. And yes puberty affects it but I find gymnasts only get more powerful post puberty. Biles is perfect example
The look that Bela wanted... so cringe. Also Tim calling a routine a disaster. He still does this. Scoring is so crazy here. I think hey held Kerri back to make sure Kim won. Kerri should have gotten 9.9 on bars.
