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Thursday, February 8, 2001

Olympic-caliber
gymnastics at Blaisdell

China, Romania and the U.S.
to meet for Pontiac Team Cup

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By Pat Bigold
Star-Bulletin

The Chinese men and Romanian women gymnasts, gold medal winners in Sydney, will be here next month to headline the first major international competition en route to Athens 2004.

The U.S. will be the third country involved in the fifth Pontiac American Team Cup at the Blaisdell Center March 30-31.

"We want to test ourselves against the best," said Bob Colarossi, USA Gymnastics president, who arrived here yesterday.

"I think the Romanians and the Chinese will send their top athletes. This is probably the most prestigious team meet in the world that we host every year."

Teams do not have to submit official rosters until a few weeks before the event.

Ticket prices and times for the competition have yet to be set but Colarossi said the time slots will be in the afternoon. The Hawaii competition will be shown on NBC on April 7 (men) and April 14 (women).

It's the first time in 15 years that Hawaii has been the venue for Olympic-caliber gymnastics competition. There were three U.S. vs. China events here in the 1980s (1981, 1984, 1986).

Romania's Andreea Raducan, the center of controversy when she was stripped of her individual all-around gold, could draw the most attention here.

An hour before her performance at the Olympics, Raducan took medication that included a banned substance -- pseudoephedrine, which is found in many over-the-counter cold remedies.

Colarossi said this will probably be the first time a stricter code of points, installed after Sydney, is used in the judging of teams.

"The first individual competition will be held in Orlando at the end of this month, but Hawaii will host the first team competition with the new code," said Colarossi. "In the rings for men, there will be a lot more strength required, and for women the bars will be hard and a lot of the vaults have been devalued," he said. "It's totally possible you could see things that have never been done before."

China should have all-around women's bronze medalist Xuan Liu with them.

Tasha Schwikert, who was on the 2000 Olympic team, and two-time junior national champ Kristal Yuzelac will probably lead the American women.

Olympians Dominique Dawes and Amy Chow will not compete here. Dawes has retired and Chow is taking time off, according to Colarossi.

Wei Yang of China and five-time U.S. national champion Blaine Wilson are likely to be here for the men's competition.

Tickets will be available Monday at the Blaisdell box office and Ticket Plus.