Soviet monopoly of gold medals broken

Press, 26 September 1988, Page 23

Soviet monopoly of gold medals broken

. NZPA-Reuter Seoul China’s Lou Yun successfully defended the horse vault title he won at - the Los Angeles Games . and three East Europeans . ended the Soviet Union’s monopoly of gold medals . in the Olympic gymnastics competition on Saturday. But the Soviet Union -still picked up six more golds in the men’s appara- , tus finals, adding to the four they won in the ; men’s and women’s team - and individual all-round competitions. Four of their golds on Saturday came from /shared first places. Vladimir Artemov added two golds and a silver to his earlier individual all- ■ round title, Dmitri Bilozerchev also won two titles — both shared — and Sergei Kharkov and , Valeri Liukin struck gold as well. •> On the pommel horse there was a three-way tie for first place between Bilozerchev, Zsolt Borkai, • of Hungary, and the Bulgarian, Lubomir Geraskov

and three national anthems played at the victory ceremony for the first time in Olympic gymnastics history. Three Finns tied for the gold, also on the pommel horse, at the 1948 Games in London. Bilozerchev, the world all-round champion, won another gold medal on the rings but had to share this victory with East Germany’s Holger Behrendt. After the competition the results were revised to give Behrendt sole first place. But after much confusion and debate behind the scenes the original tie was restored. Lou was the only nonSoviet gymnast to claim sole possession of a gold medal in the men’s competition. The two Soviet competitors on the vault, Sergei Kharkov and Vladimir Gogoladze, both fell on landing from complicated first vaults and for the first time this week the Soviet Union missed out on the medals in a gym-

nasties event. Lou, with two identically clean vaults, edged out East Germany’s Sylvio Kroll for the gold. The biggest cheer of the day came when South Korea’s Park Jong-Hoon was awarded a perfect 10 for his second vault, lifting him to the bronze medal. Artemov won the final two events, showing sublime control on the parallel bars and perfect technique on the horizontal bar. His team-mate, Valery. Liukin, silver medallist on the parallel bars, performed best on the horizontal bar to join Artemov on the victory rostrum as gold medallist for the event. Kharkov’s gold came from a high-bouncing, twisting and turning floor routine which two judges rated worthy of a 10. The mark was averaged out to 9.975, but was still good enough to beat Artemov for first place.