ANAHEIM, California, 25 August 2003 — Bulgarian Jordan Jovtchev provided a perfect reminder of the beauty of gymnastics on a night when six shared medals at Saturday’s World Championships program drew a disgruntled response from fans.
Jovtchev, who tore side muscles in a fall on the parallel bars earlier in the week, overcame the pain factor to produce exemplary, gold-medal winning performances on floor and rings.
But in both disciplines he had to be content with sharing the title of ‘world champion’, for American Paul Hamm matched him on the floor with 9.762 points and Greek Dimosthenis Tampakos was awarded an identical score of 9.787 on the rings.
Those tied golds were augmented by four other shared medals on the first night of individual apparatus finals at the Arrowhead Pond.
China’s Teng Haibin and Japan’s Takehiro Kashima both won gold on the pommel horse, while Italian duo Matteo Morandi and Andrea Coppolino looked forward to toasting success together after they were each awarded a bronze on the rings.
In the women’s section, 28-year-old Uzbekistani Oksana Chusovitina defied the aging process to secure an outright gold in the vault.
However, behind her the judges failed to separate Russian Olympic champion Elena Zamolodchikova and North Korea’s Kang Yun Mi as they both took silver.
On the asymmetric bars, Americans Chellsie Memmel and Hollie Vise secured a golden ‘double’ for the home country with identical scores after two of their main rivals — Irina Yarotska of the Ukraine and Chinese Fan Ye — made errors.
The sight of 15-year-olds Memmel and Vise on the winners’ podium together was lapped up by the partisan support, but their reaction to other results was less complimentary.
Dimosthenis’s success — enough to tie Jovtchev for gold — was particularly difficult for the crowd to fathom, and boos and catcalls reverberated around the arena.
“To have so many ties, I think it could be damaging,” Philippe Silacci, press officer of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), said afterward.
“We need to find a system to overcome it. In the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee does not want shared medals so there is a ‘tiebreak’ system in force. But for finals at the World Championships, we do not use that method.”
The issue should not overshadow Jovtchev’s achievement, for he celebrated a deserved return to the gold standard after a frustrating World Championships in 2002.
Then, in Hungary, he had managed just silver on rings and on the floor exercise — in contrast to the world titles he secured on both apparatus in 2001.
Canadian Kyle Shewfelt settled for bronze on the floor after his 9.737, while Russian Nikolai Kryukov took bronze on the pommel behind Kashima’s and Teng’s winning total of 9.762.
Marius Urzica of Romania, the defending pommel horse world champion, finished fifth, while China’s Xiao Qin — worlds silver medalist in 2001 and 2002 — slipped off during his routine and came seventh.
In the women’s vault, Chusovitina scored 9.500 and 9.462 in each of her attempts for a winning average score of 9.481. “I’ve proved I can be a success at 28 and compete as a woman ... this sport is not only for kids,” said Chusovitina, whose three-year-old son is battling leukaemia.
Britain’s Elizabeth Tweddle earned bronze in the asymmetric bars behind Memmel and Vise. But the apparatus was low on quality, with Yarotska stopping mid-routine and Fan suffering a spectacular fall.
