Ussr Athletics

It certainly doesn't compare to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Or the failure of the hard-liners' coup last summer. But freedom won another battle with the Soviet Union Tuesday night with the success of a different sort of right-wing coup. This one involved Pavel Bure, newest right wing of the Vancouver Canucks.

Call this one "Ovanes Oganisian's Excellent Adventure." It begins in Moscow, makes stops in Shannon, Ireland; Havana, Mexico City, the Tijuana bus station, the Los Angeles Greyhound station, the Los Angeles Hilton, Montebello and finishes up in Lincoln. Oganisian, 20, is a wrestler from the Soviet Union. He says he came to the United States last spring "just to see America," then decided to stay. He recently began attending classes at the University of Nebraska, majoring in pre-pharmacy.

In a successful showing for both the American men and women at the World Gymnastics Championships, the women, as usual, stole the show, if nothing more than because of the popularity of women's gymnastics. The U.S. women won a team silver medal, had the gold medalist in all-around competition and won a silver on the uneven bars. In Sunday's closing apparatus finals, all-around champion Kim Zmeskal added a bronze medal in floor exercise and Betty Okino a bronze on beam.

Kim Gwang Suk of North Korea scored a 10 to win the gold medal in the uneven bars and Shannon Miller of the United States tied with Tatiana Gutsu of the Soviet Union to win the silver in the individual apparatus finals at the World Gymnastics Championships Saturday night. The 17-year-old Kim, who is 4 feet 4 and weighs 63 pounds, performed a routine with skills of the highest difficulty to win North Korea's first medal at this meet.

The newly independent Baltic republics of Latvia and Estonia on Friday rejected an invitation to join a Soviet team for next year's Olympics, a Soviet wire service reported. Ulyana Semyonova, vice president of Latvia's Olympic Committee, said the republic would "by no means" accept an appeal from Soviet sports officials to form a united team for the Albertville and Barcelona Games. "We have become a separate state and we have nothing to do with the U.S.S.R.

The Soviet Olympic Committee and sports representatives from the remaining 12 republics voted unanimously Thursday to send a joint Soviet team to the 1992 Olympic Winter Games at Albertville, France, and to Barcelona, Spain, for the Summer Games. Eight Soviet republics have declared independence, raising questions about their participation in events to which the Soviet Union has been invited.

The Soviet Union, which probably could have won the gold medal with a four-man team instead of six, continued its seemingly untouchable dominance in gymnastics by winning the team competition at the World Championships Tuesday night. They beat second-place China by more than seven points--equivalent to about a 20-run lead in a baseball game. And what did the Soviet coach have to say? "I am very happy, the team showed what they can do," Leonid Arkaev said.

The Soviet National Olympic Committee, bowing to the inevitable, on Friday endorsed requests from the three Baltic republics to restore their independent status in the Olympic Games. The applications by Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia must still be approved by the International Olympic Committee. "Now that the republics have been recognized by more than 30 countries, we simply cannot allow our athletes to appear in Soviet teams," said Arnold Gren, president of the Estonian Olympic Committee.