Gymnastics

The sixth annual Towson State Invitational women's gymnastics meet, a competition the Tigers have never lost, will be held tomorrow (2 p.m.) at the Towson Center. Temple, Cal-Santa Barbara, Radford, Longwood and Cortland are also in the six-team field. Tandy Knight, a senior from Takoma Park, is the defending all-around champion.

The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. on Monday. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). We do not accept results by phone. When two Howard County teams play, players from both teams (first and last names) must be mentioned in the write-up. Volleyball The Columbia Volleyball Club 13U Eagles won the silver medal at the NVVA 13s May Day Tournament on May 5 in Sterling, Va. Members of the team are: Lisa Zoch, Camille Johnson, Emily Przybyla, Alexa Welch, Madeline Winters, Melissa Bonzelet, Catherine Ott, Valerie Odonkor, Tomiwa Sobande and Kennedi Holloway.

The Anne Arundel County school department has reinstated its high school varsity gymnastics program, after canceling the sport because of a lack of coaches and student participation. Annapolis and Severna Park high schools, which had struggled to find coaches by the season's Feb. 28 practice start date, have hired coaches to oversee their gymnastics programs. "I am pleased that we now have enough coaches to be able to field gymnastics teams at six of our schools and can proceed with the spring season," said school superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell.

Harford Gymnastics Level 3 Team culminated its competition season by winning the Maryland State Championships in Williamsport on April 6. Team members included Greta Basil, Maranda Howell, Rachel Kelley, Sara Kate King, Madison Koors, Gianna Piccirilli, Madison Shaffery, Savannah Tamberino and Karlee Tuohy. The team is coached by Katy Dobson, Megan Blackburn and Sara Miller. Harford Gymnastics winning score of 112.075 was almost three points ahead of the second-place team, Cumberland's East-West Stars who scored 109.225.

If first impressions -- make that fleeting impressions -- mean anything, Baltimore apparently caught the eye of the U.S. Gymnastics Federation.In town for little more than 24 hours, USGF executive director Mike Jacki and his staff caught a flight out of here yesterday with a little extra baggage -- a case made for them that Baltimore should be the site of the 1992 U.S. Olympic gymnastic trials."

Kristie Snyder, a 17-year-old Woodbine gymnast, will attend Oregon State University on a full athletic scholarship next September.Oregon State won the Pac-10 and the Western Region championships last year and finished fourth in the NCAA national tournament.The athletic prowess of Snyder, a senior at Glenelg High School, has been a well-kept secret because she doesn't compete for her high school team. But she epitomizes the term "student-athlete."She sports a 4.0 grade-point-average, is a member of the National Honor Society and is a Maryland Distinguished Scholar Semifinalist.

If it weren't so cold here this weekend, tomorrow's Reese's World Gymnastics Cup would be a good place for Trent Dimas to get his feet wet in the world of gymnastics.Again.Dimas, who won the lone men's gold medal for the United States in Olympic gymnastics competition in 1992, took last year off to explore some business opportunities and to get away from the sport.But this weekend's competition gives Dimas a chance to find out if there's a place for him in gymnastics, while discovering if he really wants to come back.

NEW ORLEANS -- The world team trials are less than a month away. The world gymnastics championships in Japan are less than two months down the road. And the 1996 Olympic Games seem to be getting closer by the moment.Which is why this year's U.S. national championships, which began today here at the Louisiana Superdome, are a crucial step for those who have been there before and those trying to get there for the first time."It's a chance to get more experience," said Kerri Strug, who at 14 was a member of the bronze-medal-winning Olympic team in Barcelona.

Towson State opens its gymnastics season next weekend in a new league and missing some familiar competitors.Gone are four All-ECAC performers: Wendy Chalmers, Joy Rudy and Karen Sturek graduated and Carrie Leger ended her career because of back problems. They helped the Tigers to their eighth ECAC championship in nine years, pushing coach Dick Filbert's record at Towson to 234-38-1 in 12 seasons.And there are more changes in store for Towson, which has made nine straight appearances in the NCAA Southeast regional.

In the wake of former gymnast Christy Henrich's death, questions have been raised about the pressures put on young athletes -- gymnasts in particular -- to lose weight.Henrich died Tuesday night of "multiple organ system failure," complications from her bouts with the eating disorders anorexia nervosa and bulimia. She was 22.Henrich, who missed making the 1988 U.S. Olympic team by .118 of a point, became concerned about her weight in 1988 when, at a meet in Hungary, she overheard a judge say that she was too fat to make the Olympic team.

Men's college basketball Towson's Benimon named ECAC All-Star Towson junior forward Jerrelle Benimon has been selected to the Eastern College Athletic Conference Division I men's basketball All-Star team, the conference announced. Benimon, the Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Year, recorded double doubles in 20 of the Tigers' 31 contests, which is tied for the second-most in Division I. He was the league's fourth-leading scorer with 17.1 points per game and reached double figures in 27 of 31 outings.

Harford Gymnastics, along with 2,600 other athletes from across the country, competed at the Pink Invitational in Philadelphia, Pa.., Feb. 22 to 24 to support Unite for Her and breast cancer awareness. Harford's Level 7 team shined, taking first place in a field of tough competitors. Additionally, Harford took second at Levels 6 and 8, third at Level 5 and fourth at Level 9. The entire Harford team (Levels 4 to 9) had 22 athletes score above 36 in all-around and four gymnasts tallied all-around scores above 37. A new club beam record was set at Level 7 and one of Harford's Level 9 athletes was recognized with the Strength of Character Award.

Under Armour solidified its push to market to women and change the company's often masculine image Thursday by announcing a deal to become the official gear provider for USA Gymnastics for the next eight years. The partnership marks the first time Under Armour has sponsored an entire national team for the Summer Olympic Games, meaning the sports apparel company's logo will appear during televised events and could be seen on the medal stand in 2016 and 2020. Other athletes sponsored by the Baltimore-based company, such as Michael Phelps, were forced to wear competitors' gear, like Nike's, because of strict rules governing branding during the Olympics.

The darkened arena pulsed with anticipation, the thousands of spectators roaring and their cameras flashing like giant fireflies as the boxers swaggered in, punching the air, bouncing on the balls of their feet and glaring like gladiators. And then, the chanting started for the favorite of this particular crowd: "Katie!" "Katie!" "Katie!" Despite the deafening cheers - officials at the ExCel Arena said it was one of loudest crowds of the Games so far at 113.7 decibels - you might also have heard a glass ceiling shattering: Boxing, the last Summer Olympics sport to be limited to men, opened its ranks to women for the first time here.

Driven by gold for Michael Phelps and the women gymnastics team, NBC's prime-time coverage of the Summer Olympics Tuesday hit a new high in overnight ratings topping those earned by the record-setting opening ceremonies. And maybe it's me, but the complaints in social media didn't seem quite as loud yesterday. Or, maybe they were just drowned out by Phelps becoming the most decorated athlete in Olympics history. I know I saw both Phelps events and some of the women gymnastics on live stream in real time Tuesday afternoon, but still wound up watching the tape-delay version through prime time.

Before I went radio silent during my vacation last week (sorry about that -- computer time proved refreshingly scarce), I wrote about my reactions to the last summer Olympics , when I was a new parent, finding myself relating to the moms and dads in the audience for the first time, especially Debbie Phelps. Now there's a new standard in Olympic parents-in-the-stands moments, courtesy of U.S. gymnast Aly Raisman's folks, who followed along with her routine in the prelims yesterday, looking like they were trying to perform it themselves.

It's easy to sympathize with the parents who have rallied to save high school gymnastics as an interscholastic sport in Howard County. But they are grasping at straws when they accuse the school system of discriminating against girls by eliminating the program. The grievance they filed with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights should win them little more than the satisfaction of saying they tried.Fact is, the Howard system has an exemplary record on providing opportunities for female students to participate in sports.

The Howard County school board has been known to cut high school sports in the wrong places.Sooner or later, the board was bound to get it right. When it decided to eliminate varsity golf and gymnastics, thus trimming an estimated $75,000 to meet next year's $900,000 athletic budget, the board struck a worthy target for a change.In austere times like these, this was a cut dying to happen. Golf and gymnastics had three strikes against them: too costly, too many liability problems, not enough athletes.

SUNDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS F1 Hungarian Grand Prix SPEED7:30 a.m. NASCAR Sprint Cup Curtiss Shaver 400 ESPN1 MLB Oakland@Orioles MASN, 131:30 Washington@Milwaukee MASN2, 502 St. Louis@Cubs WGN-A2:10 Boston@Yankees ESPN8 B. bask. AAU: Boo Will. vs. Hou. Defenders (T) ESPNU12:30 Adidas 64 Championship CBSSN6 H.S. foot. Gridiron Kings (T) ESPNU7 Gridiron Kings (T)