Gymnastics

A former Baltimore County gymnastics teacher pleaded guilty yesterday in what federal prosecutors called one of Maryland's largest child pornography cases. Patrick David Bogan, 41, an Edgewood resident who worked with children at a White Marsh gymnastics center, could receive a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after admitting to acquiring child pornography through the mail and over the Internet. Authorities were led to Bogan after he accessed an Internet file linked from an FBI-controlled computer while perusing a bulletin board that contained child pornography.

BaseballMariners: Recalled IF Giomar Guevara from Triple-A Tacoma. Signed IF-OF Domingo Cedeno to a one-year contract.BasketballNets: Signed F Jamie Feick for the remainder of the season.CollegeMaryland: Women's gymnastics head coach Bob Nelligan and assistant coach Wendy Marshall were honored as Southeast Region Coach and Assistant Coach of the Year.HockeySharks: Re-assigned D Shawn Heins to AHL Kentucky.Pub Date: 4/12/99

BaseballAthletics: Agreed to terms with IF John Jaha on minor-league contract.Blue Jays: Agreed to terms with P Erik Ludwick and IF Tomas Perez for 1999 season.Devil Rays: Agreed to terms with C Julio Mosquera on one-year contract.Marlins: Agreed to terms with P Armando Almanza, P Joe Fontenot, IF Nate Rolison and C Guillermo Garciaon on one-year contracts.BasketballBucks: Placed G-F Jerald Honeycutt on injured list. Activated F Donny Marshall.Cavaliers: Waived G Litterial Green and F-C Roy Rogers.

BaseballAstros: Purchased contract of P Jeff Love from independent Waterbury and signed him to minor-league contract.Indians: Optioned P Mike Matthews, OF Scott Morgan and OF Alex Ramirez to Triple-A Buffalo. Assigned P Jason Grimsley, P Willie Martinez, P Jamie McAndrew, C Steven Soliz, IF Jolbert Cabrera and IF Torey Lovullo to minor-league camp.Mariners: Assigned P Damaso Marte and P Maximo de la Rosa to Double-A Orlando. Sent IF Jeff Berblinger, OF Rickey Cradle and P Jarod Juelsgaard to minor-league camp.

Ever since she was a little girl, Erin Nett has been as comfortable flipping through the air as she is walking on the ground.Life as a competitive gymnast kept her in the air five days a week for most of the past 13 years. When a broken foot ended her gymnastics career last winter, Nett turned her attention to new heights.Now, the Bel Air High senior is soaring again -- as a pole vaulter."I love the feeling. I can't even explain it," said Nett, 17. "I'm used to flipping around from gymnastics, and this is so much higher.

It's a moment that Dominique Dawes will not allow to haunt her. So Dawes will tell you there's really no need to watch the tapes of her all-around floor exercise from the 1996 Olympics. No need to reflect on the moment when, with the gold medal within her grasp, she stepped out of bounds. No need to shed any more tears than were shed that night, a night when many cried along with her."There's no need to watch something that I already did. I saw it, I was there," Dawes said last week. "I don't sit around and reflect on that.

It took a long trip away from home for Towson State gymnast Erin Shanley to realize just how much potential she had.When she was 11 years old, she traveled from her home in Virginia Beach, Va., to Houston one weekend to take part in a camp run by U.S. gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi. What was originally planned as just a weekend of fun turned into an invitation to come back to Houston to train with Karolyi and try out for the national team. With dreams of making the Olympics, Shanley accepted.

Why would any young girl subject herself to the abuse inherent in becoming an Olympic-class gymnast? Why would sane parents allow their daughter to get involved with what often seems little more than legalized child abuse?Those were the questions posed in Joan Ryan's 1995 book, "Little Girls in Pretty Boxes," a relentless attack on the world of girls' gymnastics that made the sport seem almost Dickensian in the assembly-line, push-'em-until-they-drop, no-cost-is-too-great way parents and coaches try to turn pre-teen girls into teen-age Olympic champions.

One of the big differences between sport and art is that no one expects art to be fair. Few ostensibly sporting endeavors may be less fair than figure skating and gymnastics, sports that resemble ballet and, like ballet, make stars of idealized young women. As the new Olympic season dawns, debate stirs again around these girls - so young, so small, so thin, facing such odds. Should American girls be encouraged, or even allowed, to embrace the discipline and accept the standards it takes to win?

Let the viewer beware: Not everything you'll see during the Olympics will be live.That seems obvious with the sheer volume of activity and a tight NBC telecast schedule, but how will you know what's live and what's taped?You probably won't, not if yesterday's first day of competition is an early indicator. The network did a fair amount of, shall we say, fudging, about what was happening as you watched, and what had already taken place.Swimming and gymnastics commentators only casually, and we suspect, unintentionally, let a few time references slip in, but save for a few things on the schedule, like the swimming finals, most of what aired was on tape.

As a Maryland freshman, Brandi George brought lots of baggage to College Park. Her parents had just died six months apart, and George, a star gymnast, struggled to cope with the loss. Her college coach vowed to see her through it. When George arrived on campus, Bob "Duke" Nelligan presented her with a hand-hewn basswood memory box in which to store family keepsakes. On the lid, he had carved the Chinese symbol for courage. Moved to tears, George let her emotions spill out in just the kind of catharsis she needed.

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.

Anne Arundel County public schools have announced the discontinuation of gymnastics as a high school varsity sport because of sagging participation and a lack of coaches. Four of the county's high schools had obtained gymnastics coaches just a few weeks before practice for the spring season, county officials said in a statement last week. County athletic procedures dictate that at least six of Anne Arundel's 12 comprehensive high schools must field varsity teams in a sport for the county to support it. "It is regrettable that we have had to make this decision," county schools Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell said.

The competition is long over, and with the Olympics about to end, China's gold-medal women's gymnastics team was still awaiting one final ruling from the judges. Officials from the International Gymnastics Federation pored over documents yesterday in hopes of putting to rest, once and for all, persistent questions about the ages of all but one member of the six-person team. Chinese gymnastics officials handed over passports, identification cards and family residence permits after the FIG - at the request of the International Olympic Committee - asked for additional documentation on He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng Linlin and Li Shanshan.

BEIJING - Over this year of monthly training camps and small meets, of national championships and Olympic trials, Martha Karolyi watched Nastia Liukin do double duty. Liukin had become an international star on uneven bars and balance beam. She has won world titles in those events, where her elegant long lines and training from her mother, Anna, who was a world champion rhythmic gymnast, are best displayed. But on the vault and floor exercise, Liukin had been at a disadvantage in major international meets, especially against her fellow American Shawn Johnson.

BEIJING - When Jonathan Horton went to the 2007 gymnastics world championships in Stuttgart, Germany, his mother told him to bring home an all-around medal. "I told her, 'Mom, you're crazy. It's too soon.' When I came to Beijing, my mom told me to just come and have a good time. I told her I was going to win an all-around medal," Horton said. "She looked at me like I was crazy." Horton's achievement at those world championships was almost overlooked because the U.S. women were winning so many medals - including Shawn Johnson's all-around gold.

BEIJING - It's time for a pep talk from Bela Karolyi. The U.S. women's gymnastics team will need a "spectaculous" performance to defeat China for the gold medal in what will be one of the most intriguing contests of the 2008 Olympics. Who will stumble? Who will fall? Who will nail their landings? The Americans are hurting. They are bandaged. They are older and bigger than the Chinese team, thus creakier. China finished first in Sunday's team qualification round, just 1.475 points ahead of the United States.

The perfect 10 is dead. Long live the A and B scores. Viewers who watch gymnastics only every four years are in for a shock. The scoring system that made Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton stars has been replaced by a complicated two-tier method that grades athletes on difficulty and artistry. Like the scoring changes in figure skating put in place after the 2002 Winter Games (think weeping French judge, incredulous Scott Hamilton, and duplicate gold medals for the Russian and Canadian pairs teams)

What to watch Ray Frager's guide to the 2008 Olympics, which begin tonight with the opening ceremony at 7:30 (all prime-time listings for chs. 11, 4) AUG 9 HIGHLIGHTS It's the first episode of the Phelps and Hoff Show, as Baltimore's gifts to the swimming world compete in their versions of the 400-meter individual medley. They hold the men's and women's records for the 400 IM and could be holding gold medals tonight (though it will be day in Beijing). Locals to watch Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff, of course.

Big Brown is going back to the races, his next start set for the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on Aug. 3. Less than two weeks after Big Brown's Triple Crown attempt ended with an inexplicable last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes, co-owner Paul Pompa Jr. said the Haskell on the Jersey shore will mark the colt's return. Big Brown has been training daily at Aqueduct Racetrack, while his poor performance in the Belmont remains a mystery to the owners and trainer Rick Dutrow, a Hagerstown native.