Word: gymnastics
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...much the senses that TV misses -- the smell of the chalk, the feel of the sun, the deafening chants that greet every Korean judoka -- as it is the confusion. TV likes the orderly. It cannot, therefore, catch the lovely mayhem of gymnastics, the dizzying lyricism of a four-square circus in which everything is happening at once: a Japanese girl running furiously toward the | vault, even as an East German prances through her floor exercises, a Guatemalan teeters on the balance beam, a Bulgarian attacks the parallel bars. The first time one sees a gymnast leap, one's heart flies...
...opted for a subtler form of boosterism: its commentators are neutral, but if a sport offers dim prospects for a U.S. medal, it gets scant airtime. U.S. viewers intrigued by all the advance talk about Soviet gymnast Dmitri Bilozerchev were able to view only a smattering of his routines, although the reporting team of Dick Enberg, Mary Lou Retton and especially Bart Conner explained the events incisively. Fans of men's diving were lucky to see Greg Louganis tucked into the bottom right-hand corner while a minor basketball game dominated the screen...
Charles Lakes is the highest-ranked American gymnast in the Olympics...
...cast and crew are acutely aware that they have a tough act to follow. "It's like a new actor taking over another actor's role," says Anchor Gardner. No drastic departures from ABC's successful formula are planned. NBC has rounded up the required roster of former Olympians -- Gymnast Mary Lou Retton, Swimmer John Naber, High Jumper Dwight Stones -- as expert analysts, and is preparing taped features similar to ABC's "Up Close and Personal" reports. "I think ABC has done a great job; we hope to do a great job too," says Michael Eskridge, NBC's executive vice...
...routines and disputed scores, it is a fair bet that an agile sprite in a colorful leotard will emerge as a sweetheart of Seoul. For reasons as difficult to identify as the gradations of excellence that turn silver to gold, sports fans quadrennially bestow their affection on an elfin gymnast. Perhaps it is the daunting mix of skills: the daring speed and height of the vault, the elegance and precision of the balance beam, the strength and fluidity of the uneven parallel bars, the showmanship and gravity subversion of the floor exercise. Or perhaps it is the sheer beauty...