She knows the pain of missing the cut
GYMNASTICS
Selection process didn't work in 1992 for Kim Warren, and she's still not comfortable with how the team is picked for the Olympics.
NEW WAVERLY, Texas -- Kim Warren is a happily married mother of two, a kindergarten teacher in Cullman, Ala., and a keen observer of U.S. women's gymnastics.
Her heart will break tonight for whichever of the hopeful girls who have gathered here at the Bela and Martha Karolyi ranch near Houston are left off the six-member U.S. gymnastics Olympic team.
And her heart won't feel all that great for the girls who have made it.
"The process is so hard and so fickle," Warren said. "I watched the Olympic trials and I didn't think anyone looked happy.'
In 1992 Warren -- then Kim Kelly -- participated at the U.S. Olympic trials in Baltimore. As the sixth-place all-around finisher, the 18-year-old Warren was introduced to the in-house crowd, and live on NBC, as an Olympian.
She received her Team USA gear and a few days later went to Florida where she thought she would participate in a camp that would help her fine-tune her routines and bond with her other five teammates.
The camp, Warren believed, also was supposed to help evaluate the health of two top-ranked gymnasts, Betty Okino and Michelle Campi, and to determine who would be the team alternate.
Instead, at nearly midnight in a hotel room near Orlando, Warren's coach Donna Strauss came to her room.
"I had just finished my shower," Warren said, "and Donna came in. I asked her who got cut and she looked at me and said, 'You.'
"It took me five or 10 minutes to have the news sink in. Then I started screaming and went to find Bela. I was screaming and yelling. I just didn't understand. I still don't."
Warren was a victim of an Olympic selection process that wasn't so different from what has happened this year. But now the coaches, athletes, national team directors and fans are aware that the team isn't chosen strictly by the numbers.
Only two gymnasts -- all-around champion Shawn Johnson and runner up Nastia Liukin -- were named Olympians at the trials in Philadelphia last month. The other four members plus up to three alternates will be named by team coordinator Martha Karolyi tonight.
Twelve gymnasts have been participating in a final training camp since Wednesday. They are undergoing daily testing and competitions, trying to prove both their physical well-being and mental toughness. Even Chellsie Memmel, a former world champion and a strong third-place finisher at the trials, isn't guaranteed a spot. And now the selection process is clear. Only two guaranteed spots were up for grabs. The rest are discretionary.
