Dawes and Chow on their way to Sydney

BOSTON — Shannon Miller's Olympic dream is over. Dominique Dawes' and Amy Chow's are still running strong.

While Miller withdrew from Sunday's Olympic gymnastic trials after jamming her knees on her first event, the first and last members of the Magnificent Seven to come back were wowing the crowd and Bela Karolyi with a series of strong, elegant routines.

Joining Dawes and Chow on the squad for the Sydney Olympics are national champion Elise Ray, Kristen Maloney, Jamie Dantzscher and Morgan White.

Alyssa Beckerman is the alternate.

Left out was Vanessa Atler, who, as the junior champion in 1996, was expected to be the next American darling.

Though designed to put the strongest team on the floor, the way the Olympic squad is chosen has caused quite a controversy. The weighted scores from trials (60 percent) and last month's U.S. Gymnastics Championships (40 percent) were combined to rank the women. A selection committee headed by Karolyi then picked the six-woman team, but they weren't bound by the scores.

That means someone who finished in fifth or sixth place, for example, could be left off in favor of someone who finished 11th. There were signs in the crowd reading, "Now it's Bela's Choice," and "Pick Talent, Not Name."

The responsibility was obviously weighing on Karolyi. Instead of roaming the floor and playing head cheerleader Friday night, he and his wife, Martha, huddled at the scorer's table, jotting down notes and scores. His normal ebullience was replaced by seriousness as he consulted with the other members of the selection committee.

But Chow and Dawes made it easy for him.

Chow has the tough tricks that can put the United States back on the medals podium, but she does them so effortlessly it makes people in the audience think, "Hey, I could do that."

Think again. On her first vault, her opening event, Chow nailed a Yurchenko double twist. In plain English, that means she did a roundoff onto the springboard, hurtling through the air, twisting twice before landing flat on her feet.

She had a small problem on her second vault, but still scored a 9.537, the second-highest score of the night.

She finished with 76.205 points, just 0.534 points behind Ray.

Dawes has only been training seriously since April, and her return has been nothing short of spectacular. She has almost all of the hard tricks that everybody else has, and what she lacks in difficulty, she makes up for in presentation.

Dawes brought the house down on her final event, the balance beam. Though the two competitors before her had faltered on the beam, Dawes did back flips and tumbled with ease.