Betty Okino in competition.

COMING SOON: Olympic medalist and actress Betty Okino is covering the gymnastics competition at the 2000 Sydney Olympics for SportsHollywood. Okino was a Bronze medalist with the U.S. Team in the 1992 Olympics, and brings her years of expertise and inside knowledge to the games. Only this time, not being on the team, she gets to have some fun and actually eat!

E-MAIL BETTY WITH YOUR QUESTIONS

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Gymnastics is a perfect sport for the Olympic Games. Mixing strength and agility with style and grace, it's the sport where athletics meets aesthetics.

Gymnastics traces all the way back to the ancient Olympic Games in Greece. The word itself comes from the Greek word gymnos, meaning naked. In fact, gymnasts actually performed in the nude at the all-male ancient Games of Olympia. Christians of the time considered gymnastics Satanic because of its focus on the body. So bad press and financial corruption led to the banning of gymnastics in 393 A.D. (Bad press? Financial corruption? Some things never change at the Olympics.)

The sport did not reappear in the public arena until the 16th century, and didn't really truly return as a competitive sport until the Olympics Games in Athens in 1896. Men from five countries competed in the horizontal bar, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings and vault. The 1928 Games in Amsterdam witnessed the debut of the first women's event, but U.S. women didn't compete until the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Only two members from the United States' 1996 gold-medal women's gymnastics team will compete in the Sydney Games: 1992 and 1996 Olympian Dominique Dawes, and 1996 Olympian Amy Chow are on the team, which was selected after four days of trials in Boston. Amazingly, Dominique had only trained seriously since May first, but now becomes America's first three-time Olympian in women's gymnastics since Muriel Davis.

The gymnasts were ranked according to their weighted scores from the trials and the U.S. championships, but a selection committee headed by Bela Karolyi then picked the team:

Bela Karolyi, National Team Coordinator

For the Sydney 2000 Games, gymnastics features three disciplines: artistic, rhythmic and, for the first time, trampoline. Trampoline can be a grueling sport. (Picture Kerri Strug trying to do her routine on one of those things with a broken bone in her foot!) Jennifer Parilla was selected to compete in trampoline.

And yes, they will all be wearing clothes.

9/10/2000

Okino Archive

Betty Okino 1990 U.S. National Championships: Silver Medalist (AA), Gold Medalist (Beam) and Event Finalist (5th Bars, 4th Floor) 1991 World Championships: Silver Medalist (Team), Bronze Medalist (Beam) and 4th AA 1991 American Cup: Champion and Gold Medalist (AA, Vault, Bars) 1992 World Championships: Silver Medalist (Bars) and Event Finalist (8th Beam) 1992 Olympics: Bronze Medalist (Team) and Event Finalist (6th Beam)