Men's gymnastics grabbing new respect

ATHENS, Greece — The U.S. men's gymnastics program had the greatest moment in its history Monday night, and anyone who doubts that might want to try this little game: Name three Division I colleges still giving out scholarships.

"I've been preaching the doom and gloom in gymnastics ever since the college program started its rapid decline," Peter Vidmar, a medalist from the 1984 team, said Monday. "I never thought we could do this well again (in the Olympics) because we lost that feeder program. But hopefully there will be a ripple effect."

Men's gymnastics would be a bright star in the U.S. amateur sports sky, if only it wasn't so small. Despite the fact only 19 Division I colleges still give scholarships — that's the microscopic carrot being dangled in front of budding pommel-horse jockeys — the U.S. won the team Olympic silver medal Monday night.

This comes after consecutive fifth-place finishes in Sydney and Atlanta. This comes after a drought that hadn't seen the U.S. men win an Olympic medal since the silver in Los Angeles in '84 — and you can debate how impressive that was in the year of a Soviet-led boycott. It's the U.S. team's first medal in a non-boycotted Games since 1932 — and, for what it's worth, we also had home-floor advantage in those Olympics in L.A.

This American team won silver in a foreign country with every country present. Big difference.

"We just made history," Paul Hamm said. "Maybe now the nation will look at men's gymnastics in a better light."

How about any light? Hamm should know about being ignored. Last year he became the first U.S. male to win the individual all-around in the World Championships. He wasn't even listed among the finalists for the Sullivan Award, which is given to the nation's top amateur athlete.

This is a sport that pretty much has been dominated for the last four Olympics by China, Russia, Ukraine and Japan. But the U.S. gymnastics program reassessed things after the disappointing finish in Sydney, tightened up routines and raised the difficulty (start values). It paid off with silver medals in the World Championships in 2001 and 2003. It nearly paid off with a gold Monday. But the U.S., after standing first following the first two rotations, did not do well on the rings (seventh best in the rotation) and dropped to third.

Still third after four rotations with two to go, Blaine Wilson huddled with teammates. "I said, 'I don't give a (bleep) what happened earlier — let's get this done,' " recalled Wilson, the inspiration leader of this team who overcame injury and personal tragedy (the death of his unborn child) to compete in Athens.