London 2012: Jordyn Wieber: the US gymnast going for Olympic gold

In her book Letters to a Young Gymnast, Nadia Comaneci, the "perfect 10" star of the Montreal Olympics of 1976, writes to an imaginary young fan in the US. The girl the great Romanian corresponds with is a budding gymnast herself, with dreams of vaults and beams, who has written to ask her: "Tell me everything …"
The book that hangs from this question is Comaneci's autobiography, a story extraordinary for its extremes of courage and dedication, in which the Romanian examines the forces and sacrifices – athletic, psychological, political – that drove her on to her unprecedented perfection (no one had achieved a 10 in competition before her; in Montreal she was awarded the mark seven times). Comaneci's book was published in 2003 and you might imagine that the kind of young American gymnast who would have written her that letter, asked her that question, would have been the current world champion, Jordyn Wieber, now aged 17.
Certainly Wieber, who grew up in DeWitt, Michigan, and is still at school, fits the bill of Comaneci's imaginary friend: a girl who, even at seven, appears to share a single-minded dedication to the sport, like the champion's younger self. In fact, Wieber started gymnastics far earlier even than Comaneci, who was spotted in the playground doing cartwheels at the age of six. Wieber first took to the mat aged two, when her parents noticed that little Jordyn had larger leg muscles than most of her fellow nursery-goers and enrolled her in a gym class.
Wieber has noted in interviews, at least slightly tongue in cheek, that she took a break at three to pursue an interest in dance, but she returned to the gym a year later, the point at which, she says, she "started to take it really seriously". By the age of 11 Wieber was competing in the US national championships and a few questions were raised about the wisdom of having her compete in senior competitions at such a young age. Those questions were quickly answered when for three years beginning in 2008 she was undefeated in any all-round competition, beating all-comers at last year's World Championships. Wieber arrives at these Olympics a clear favourite for the overall title.
The comparison with Comaneci is instructive for a number of reasons. No Olympic sport is more rooted in old Cold War mythology than women's gymnastics, and as she goes through her routines Wieber will be competing not only against Russian and Chinese and American rivals, but also the memories of Olga Korbut and Nellie Kim and Comaneci herself, whose signature moves are preserved in the nomenclature of the sport.
Some of the privations of the system that produced those gymnasts have gone – Comaneci wonders wistfully of her young fan at one point: "Do you take long, long hot showers, dine on take-out from Thai restaurants, order clothes off the internet", all questions that Wieber would no doubt answer in the affirmative – and motivations have changed. Wieber's stated ambition is less to "bring glory to her nation" than to one day meet her near namesake, the Canadian singer Justin Bieber. Fame, in Ceaucescu's Romania, did not provide Comaneci with "millions of dollars and your face on a Wheaties box".
But some things stay the same. Wieber is coached in the USA squad by the legendary Marta Karolyi, one half of the husband and wife team who discovered and developed Nadia Comaneci all those years ago. The Karolyis, whose revolutionary training camp in Onesti, Romania was not without controversy, (Comaneci recalls of Bela Karolyi, Marta's husband, "I was the only young gymnast he could never break") were first installed as national coaches in the US after defecting during the World Championships in 1981. Including Comaneci they have coached nine Olympic champions and 15 world champions, of whom Wieber is the latest.
Marta Karolyi is now 69, and women's national team coordinator for the USA, but watching Wieber takes her back. "Jordyn always was very intense in going for whatever she was asked to do," Karolyi recalled of Wieber when she first saw her at a development camp. "She was in her own world and wasn't a very smiley person. But I had Nadia Comaneci, who wasn't a smiley person, and that's the type of gymnast Jordyn is. I could compare her mental toughness to Nadia."
Some of that toughness no doubt has been reinforced by Marta Karolyi's infamous rigour – "The Karolyis understood that as children we young gymnasts were incapable of disciplining ourselves, so they had to do it for us," Comaneci wrote of her experience with the couple. Wieber seems to have taken to that regime quite naturally.
As a gymnast she is all concentration and muscle, noted for her unswerving dedication, even among other champions. "She really does not have a weak event," Shannon Miller, a USA Olympic gold medallist of 1996 suggests. "She has worked very hard on uneven bars to make sure that that's not a weakness and she's just a powerhouse on the other three. So it's hard to find a chink in the armour."
Her fellow American Shawn Johnson, who won Olympic gold on the beam at the 2008 Beijing Games but will miss out this time because of a knee injury, also points to her compatriot's consistency. "She has big tricks and she nails them, she nails them every time."
The British No1 Rebecca Tunney is only a few months younger than Wieber but views her as the seasoned pro. "Everything she does is just perfect. Obviously it's not perfect, but it looks perfect," Tunney said at a pre-Olympic gathering. "Any gymnast should look up to her. She has the power on the floor, but at the same time she can look elegant as well …"
Wieber's contenders for the all-round Olympic title include the Russians Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina, and no doubt some unknown quantities among the Chinese, but perhaps the greatest danger will come from her team-mate Gabby Douglas, who surprisingly defeated her in the US Olympic trials last month.
Douglas, a year younger than Wieber and all grace and sinew to her explosive power, has been threatening her supremacy for a year or more. The pair were just about tied going into their last discipline at the US trials and, sensing a story, the broadcaster NBC panned between them in close-up as they waited for what seemed an extended time to perform their last routines. Douglas, from Virginia, stood at one corner of the floor mat. She has become something of a crowd favourite, nicknamed the "flying squirrel" for the soaring height she achieves on her leaps during bar routines. Wieber, meanwhile, was kept waiting at the end of the vault runway. Finally the judges instructed Wieber to go and she performed a solid but unspectacular vault, a little below her best. Watching her rival Douglas later recalled how she thought, "OK, you've got this, you've got this", before she went through her floor work. As it turned out, she had got it, by a tenth of a point – finally achieving what she had been trying and failing to do throughout her short career: to beat Jordyn Wieber.
Fiercely competitive in her every move and gesture, Wieber was gracious in defeat despite the American media's efforts to stoke up a potential stand-off between her and Douglas with overtones of skating's Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. "I think to have a bit of friendly rivalry in the competition is important," Wieber suggested in a press room in which Douglas was still weeping tears of joy at her victory. "It just keeps pushing us a little more."
As Wieber well knows, winning the trials is one thing, winning Olympic gold is another. One observer understood this distinction as clearly as anyone. Bela Karolyi no longer has an official position with the USA women's squad, after complaints were made by other coaches about the perceived demands of his approach, but he is still generally in attendance with his wife, who took over his role as coordinator, and their daughter, who is the squad's nutritionist.
After watching the trials, Bela Karolyi insisted that Wieber, who he has known for a long time, was still very much the athlete to beat. "I don't see anyone from our team beating Jordyn," he told journalists, comparing her strength favourably with almost any gymnast he had ever coached. "Jordyn is sturdy, she is like a machine …"
Source : http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/14/jordyn-wieber-gymnastics-london-2012