Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, February 11, 2005, Washington Post

All Work and Games

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, are a long way off. But all over the United States, young gymnasts are working out and dreaming of becoming one of the handful of athletes who will represent the country at the Games.

One of the places where girls are training is Hill's Gymnastics in Gaithersburg. Kelli Hill has coached gymnastics for more than 25 years. She has trained three Olympians: Dominique Dawes, a gold- and bronze-medal winner in 1996; Elise Ray, who competed in 2000; and Courtney Kupets, who won silver and bronze last year.

Now, Hill is coaching two 15-year-olds, Jennifer Iovino and Britney Ranzy, who have a chance of making the 2008 team. Jennifer and Britney are among 150 U.S. girls who have reached the highest level of competitive gymnastics.

Do Jennifer and Britney dream of the 2008 Olympics? They both smile and say, "Sure." "But it's so far away," Jennifer adds quickly, "that you can't even call it a goal. You have to take baby steps first."

Those "baby steps" include 35 hours of workouts every week with more than 30 other top gymnasts at Hill's Gymnastics. The workouts pack more exercise in a couple hours than most kids get in a month.

First, the girls warm up by jumping rope for 15 minutes. Then they stretch for 15 minutes. Then the girls practice for hours at the four events in women's gymnastics: the floor exercise, uneven bars, vault and balance beam.

Don't let the grace of this sport fool you. Gymnasts need to be as tough as NFL linebackers. Gymnasts try the nearly impossible, fail, fall, then dust themselves off and sprint into their next vaults and flips without a second's hesitation.

Sometimes all the trying and falling hurts. When asked what the hardest part of gymnastics is, Britney says, "Coming back from injuries." Britney is recovering from a chipped bone and a hamstring pull, though you would never know it to watch her fly around the gym.

Most of the girls at Hill's Gymnastics will never get close to the Olympics. Hill proudly points out that five of the girls will go to college next year on full scholarships for gymnastics. But most of the girls keep trying simply because they love the sport.

Still, the question hangs over the gym like the trophies and Olympic posters that decorate the walls. Could Jennifer or Britney, or maybe someone else, be the next Dominique Dawes, Elise Ray or Courtney Kupets?

Even Hill doesn't know. "Gymnastics takes a very tough, disciplined mind," she says. "You have to have the ability to block everything out and do back flips on a four-inch board with 10,000 people watching you. No one knows who has that ability until they try to do it in competition."

National qualifying and the U.S. Championships are this summer. Those meets may supply some answers.

Until then, Jennifer and Britney, and all the gymnasts at Hill's Gymnastics, will be doing a little dreaming and a lot of hard work.