BOSTON - Columbia gymnast Elise Ray wasn't perfect on the final night of the U.S. Olympic Gymnastic Team Trials, but it was a perfect evening nonetheless.
Ray held her place at the top of the combined rankings and was trumpeted by national team coordinator Bela Karolyi as "the leader" of the newly chosen women's team, but she was even happier to learn that her training partner, Olympic medalist Dominique Dawes, would be joining her at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, next month.
"That means a lot," said Ray, who trains with Dawes under coach Kelli Hill at Hill's Gymnastics in Gaithersburg. "It's hard to go through anything for the first time. To have someone like Dominique - especially a teammate - who has been through it before makes a huge difference."
If that wasn't enough close support, USA Gymnastics President Bob Colarossi added to the Baltimore-Washington flavor of the evening when he announced late last night that Hill had been named head coach of the women's team.
Perhaps that was the biggest surprise of the weekend, considering Hill's outspoken opposition to the subjective selection process that allowed Karolyi and a small committee to choose all six members of the team. That very process would propel Dawes from a seventh-place finish in the overall rankings into her third Olympics at the expense of sixth-ranked Vanessa Atler.
"I have supported a top-six program," Hill said, "so, yes, I think it's very ironic that one of my athletes ended up replacing another athlete. I pray to God it's the best thing for the team."
Though the selection process was contentious, there was surprisingly little controversy in the final selections. The top five finishers in the combined rankings from the U.S. Nationals and the trials - Ray, Amy Chow, Kristen Maloney, Morgan White and Jamie Dantzscher - made the team along with Dawes and alternate Alyssa Beckerman. Atler finished fifth, but her performance in the preliminaries and finals left the selection committee doubtful that she would perform well under Olympic pressure.
Dawes made the team because of her experience and her steadily improving performance in the U.S. Nationals and the trials. She turned in the sixth-best all-around performance in the prelims on Friday night and was fifth last night, but still had to sweat out the selection process after the meet.
"I didn't know what the criteria of the selection committee would be," she said. "I didn't try to figure it out. I never focus on things that are out of my control. All I could control was my performance. I went out and hit eight events, and I felt good about that."
It was another solid night for Ray, who opened with a pair of solid vaults (9.443) and delivered strong performances in the floor exercise (9.812) and the uneven bars (9.812).
Ray fell off the balance beam in her final event of the trials, but it wouldn't matter. She already had built an insurmountable lead in the combined rankings and - in the space of a month - had clearly established herself as the nation's top female gymnast.
"I'm a little bit overwhelmed," said Ray, whose emotions bubbled up as she and the rest of the team was introduced to an enthusiastic crowd at Boston's FleetCenter. "If I could capture this moment in a bottle forever, I would."
Karolyi's prediction came true. The women's trials did come down to a battle between a new generation of world-class gymnasts and a group of returning contenders from the 1996 U.S. team that won a team gold medal in Atlanta, but the most prominent veteran had to withdraw from the finals last night.
Two-time Olympian Shannon Miller, who suffered a hairline fracture in her right tibia - lower leg - less than two months ago, landed early on her first vault and crumpled to the mat in obvious pain. She would get up to complete her second attempt, but decided along with her coach, Steve Nunno, that it was pointless to go on.
