Officials Reprimanded for Vault Mishap

S Y D N E Y, Australia, Sept. 24, 2000 -- Gymnastics’ governing body has

reprimanded officials who didn’t notice the vault was almost two

inches shorter than it should have been during the women’s

all-around.

The shortened vault could have cost favored Svetlana Khorkinathe gold medal. Khorkina crashed on her first vault Thursday andthen, thinking her chances at gold were gone, dropped off theuneven bars.

“It is very unfortunate that this situation occurred during theOlympic Games and FIG regrets the duress that the situation placedon some gymnasts,” the International Gymnastics Federation said ina statement today.

The federation didn’t release details of the officials’punishment.

Cited for ‘Lack of Control’

Workers adjusting the vault between the men’s and women’sall-around — the men use a higher vault — set it 1.97 inchesshorter than regulation. Eighteen women vaulted before the errorwas fixed, and the shortened height led to several spectacularcrashes.

The Women’s Technical Committee and the Superior Jury wereresponsible for supervising the competition equipment and have beenreprimanded for “lack of control,” the federation said.

Steps also were taken to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“It was checked. Believe me, it was checked. I’m suretriple-checked,” Slava Corn, president of the FIG’s mediacommission, said after the women’s vault final today.

“And, quite frankly, I don’t think we’ll ever have an errorlike this again.”

Khorkina Missed a Medal

But that doesn’t do Khorkina much good now.

The 5-foot-5 Russian didn’t get enough height on her first vaultand crashed to the mat on her knees. She landed her second vaultperfectly, but her score of 9.343 wasn’t enough to win gold.

Distraught and distracted — gymnasts hadn’t been told they couldredo their vaults yet — she fell off the uneven bars and droppedout of medal contention.

“It’s very difficult and it hurts a lot,” Khorkina said todayafter winning gold in the uneven bars. “It’s cruel to all of theparticipants which had the horse vault that was not of standardheight.”

It was also dangerous, she said.

“It’s quite possible to get killed,” she said. “If you’re used to a vault of a certain height, all of the sudden, those two[inches] could decide the future of a sports person.”