Will China play games at the Olympics?

By MICHAEL SMERCONISH

Bela Karolyi has good reason to be concerned about the members of his U.S. women’s gymnastics team en route to China.

In 1981, Karolyi, already the world’s most successful gymnastics coach, was wandering the streets of New York. Shadowing him were dispatches from the Romanian government’s secret police, which kept tabs on where he went, what he did, how he behaved away from home.

Karolyi had already coached Nadia Comaneci to seven perfect 10.0 scores in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal — no athlete had recorded even one perfect 10 in modern Olympic history — a feat that would help her earn three gold medals during those games.

But through the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and a 1981 exhibition tour here in the United States, Karolyi had publicly feuded with officials from his home country. In Moscow, he had openly opined that his athletes had been cheated — a public slap in the face for Russian officials already angered by the U.S. boycott. Tensions became so pronounced that by 1981, Karolyi, his wife, Marta, and an assistant coach felt pressured to make a potentially life-altering choice: either stay in the United States or retreat to the umbrella of an oppressive, socialist Romanian regime to face the consequences of his perceived defiance.

The trio decided to hold onto their one suitcase and seek political asylum in America; for the Karolyis this meant leaving behind a 7-year-old daughter in Romania.

So there in New York in 1981, Karolyi stopped the first police officer he saw and asked for directions to the immigration office. Though he spoke six languages, the coach spoke no English — a problem, because that’s the only language the cop could understand.

Hand signals

Karolyi used hand signals and broken English to explain his desire to defect.

“For the average person in Manhattan, we were nobodies,” he recently told me.

It’s an amazing story, and one I was fortunate to hear in the weeks leading up to last Sunday’s Olympic Trials finals in Philadelphia.

Karolyi told me he often thinks of his past living in a socialist country under Soviet watch as he prepares U.S. athletes to compete in China. He told me he’s “very concerned” that U.S. athletes — and even U.S. Olympic Committee officials — don’t understand the gravity of what he experienced in 1980 in Moscow.

“Definitely I’m worried,” he said. “Maybe a few people might remember what happened in Moscow. And that’s going to happen exactly in China. Just face it: China is a communist-run government. They’re investing millions and billions of dollars in order to have Olympic Games on their field. Now, don’t you think they want to take full advantage of it? Sure! This is a tremendous propaganda tool ...”

Constant surveillance

And it’s not just the constant surveillance the athletes and visitors will encounter in a hostile athletic and cultural environment. Karolyi discussed with me the “brutal” desire for victory that communist regimes cultivate. He foresees a deck stacked against the athletes he’s coaching — one that will give every chance for “the big communist sweep” that Chinese officials dream will aid their public relations effort.

“And I’m making sure that, every time, I remind our athletes that we have to go in there and the game is going to be different. There are going to be people who will not cheer for you, people that will not praise your performance and won’t appreciate your performance. Maybe they are going to boo you, maybe they are going to have a silence on your great performances when you wait for a tremendous break of the joy and excitement.

“So you just face it. You focus on your own performance. Block out everything else. You’ve got to block it out. You and your performance and your mind are a united effort. Just get to your fellow teammate and hug and show appreciation of their performance between you guys. ... You’re going to be on your own little war.”

Tough words for the petite athletes Karolyi has been mentoring for more than 40 years now. Most of them are teenagers, young enough to be granddaughters of the fiercely confident coach training them.

X Michael Smerconish writes a weekly column for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.