FORT WORTH, Texas – Led by newly-crowned Visa American Cup champion Viktoriya Karpenko, Team Ukraine won the gold medal of the International 3-on-3 Gymnastics Championships, held at the Fort Worth Tarrant County Convention Center Arena Sunday afternoon.
Karpenko scored a 9.750 on floor exercise in the final event of the competition to give her team a score of 28.800, edging past the Russian squad’s 28.690. Karpenko received support from current rhythmic gymnastics world champion Yelena Vitrichenko, who scored the only perfect 10.0 of the weekend with her ribbon routine in the championship round.
International 3-on-3 Gymnastics Championships
Fort Worth Tarrant County Convention Center Arena
Fort Worth Texas, March 8, 1998
Preliminary Round (top four advance to final round) — 1, Ukraine (Viktoriya Karpenko, Valeriy Goncharov and Yelena Vitrichenko), 28.730. 2 (tie), USA 1 (Lindsay Wing, Houston, Texas; Blaine Wilson, Columbus, Ohio; and Natalie Lacuesta, Wilmette, Ill.) and Russia (Anna Kovaleva, Alexei Bondarenko and Ekaterina Fokina), 28.555. 4, France (Elvire Teza, Dimitri Karbanenko and Eva Serrano), 28.155. 5, USA 2 (Kristy Powell, Cincinnati, Ohio; John Roethlisberger, Minneapolis, Minn.; and Kate Jeffress, Rockville, Md.), 28.015. 6, China (Meng Fei, Yang Wei and Pu Yun Fei), 27.800. 7, Mexico (Denisse Lopez, Rafael Garcia and Karemina Gutierrez), 25.562.
Final Round — 1, Ukraine, 28.800. 2, Russia, 28.690. 3, France, 28.415. 4, USA 1, 25.880.