DAWES TAKES HOME BRONZE MEDAL

Dominique Dawes takes home bronze medal in the balance beam with a score of 9.800. Dawes is now a four-time World Championships Medalist.

Tonight’s competition at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico ended the week-long 1996 Individual World Championships. The U.S. athletes competing in the competition included; Dawes of Silver Spring, Md., Jaycie Phelps of Greenfield, Ind., and Chainey Umphrey of Albuquerque, N.M. Dawes and Phelps competed on balance beam and Umphrey competed on high bar.

The balance beam line-up was most impressive. Medal contenders included ’93 World Beam Bronze Medalist, Gina Gogean of Romania, Xuan Liu of China and Romania’s newest Olympic hopeful, Alexandra Marinescu. Dawes competed a solid, almost perfect routine, adding her double turn, tying Xuan Liu with a 9.800 and winning the bronze medal. “I was satisfied with my routine except for the bobble on my turn and my landing. I came here with the goal of medaling in all three of my events but that dream was over after my floor routine. Medaling in one is better than none,” said Dawes.
Phelps was a little shaky from the beginning and later fell off on her punch front. She placed seventh with a score of 9.187. “I’m not really happy with my routine but at least I can learn from it. I need to stay focused for the entire routine,” said Phelps.
Kochetkova’s routine included a standing full to a cartwheel-step down, flip flop layout. She then turned around and tumbled a flip flop layout, flip flop layout. Kotchetkova stuck her roundoff double back dismount.
Umphrey’s competition included Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus, 1992 Olympic All-Around Champion and two-time World High Bar Medalist (’91 bronze, ’94 gold) and Zoltan Supola of Hungary, two-time World High Bar Medalist (’93 bronze, ’94 silver). Umphrey competed his usual four releases and stuck his full-in double layout dismount scoring himself a 9.712 placing fifth. Umphrey missed the bronze medal by .050. Supola scored a 9.375 because of a fall on his release move.

Men’s Medalists

V
Place/Name/Country/Score
1/Alexei Nemov/RUS/9.756
2/Andrea Massucchi/ITA/9.743
2/Hong-Chul Yeo/KOR/9.743

PB
Name/Country/Score
1/Rustam Charipov/UKR/9.750
2/Vitaly Scherbo/BLR/9.737
2/Alexei Nemov/RUS/9.737

HB
Name/Country/Score
1/Jesus Carballo/ESP/9.800
2/Krasimir Dounev/BUL/9.775
3/Vitaly Scherbo/BLR/9.762

Women’s Medalists

BB
Name/Country/Score
1/Dina Kochetkova/RUS/9.887
2/Alexandra Marinescu/ROM/9.812
3/Xuan Liu/CHN/9.800
3/Dominique Dawes/USA/9.800

FX
Name/Country/Score
1/Gina Gogean/ROM/9.850
1/Yuanyuan Kui/CHN/9.850
3/Lioubov Sheremeta/UKR/9.800
3/Lavinia Milosovici/ROM/9.800