Thursday’s meet still up in’ear’ for Umeh

Wednesday, April 24, 1996

Infection may keep top all-arounder out

of championshipsBy Esther Hui

Daily Bruin Staff

Stella Umeh’s status is still uncertain for Thursday’s NCAA
championships after a possible flare-up of an inner ear infection.
Umeh sat out the April 13 West Regionals with a broken bone in her
right foot and an inner ear infection but decided she would compete
at nationals on her foot, despite the pain, if the ear infection
clears up.

"Stella woke up (Monday) with what she calls a ‘tunnel’ feeling
in her head," UCLA head coach Valorie Kondos said. "She could be
having a relapse, which means we can’t use her at all for
nationals.

"She’s never had to work so hard in her life, she’s exhausted at
the end of each beam routine (because) she has to work so hard,"
Kondos added.

Umeh has consistently been one of UCLA’s top two all-arounders
this year, along with Leah Homma, and she placed third in the
all-around in the 1996 championships. She is also the defending
national champion on the floor exercise. It will not be decided if
Umeh will compete until just before Thursday’s preliminary team
competition.

"I figure I’m competing regardless of what pain I have in my
toe," Umeh said. "But if (the ear infection flares up) it would be
dangerous to compete because of balance; the ear infection is how I
hurt my foot. I saw the trainer and doctors today. They left it up
to me. I’ll take it one day at a time."

***

Thursday marks the beginning of the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics
Championships, the most arduous gauntlet of competitions of the
season.

The championships begin with two rounds of preliminary team
competition, with six teams competing in each round. The top three
teams in each round (six teams total) will move on to Friday
night’s Super Six team finals, which is also the all-around finals.
Thursday’s top performers in individual events will compete again
on Saturday night for individual titles. A top gymnast competing
for a top team could end up performing 12 routines in three
days.

An interesting fact about the national championships: the
closest UCLA has come to winning the team championship was in 1989,
when the legendary Bruin team halted Georgia’s home dual-meet
winning streak at 49. The Bruins lost to the Lady Bulldogs by what
was then the smallest possible increment, 192.65-192.60.

Last season the Bruins came in fourth place with a 196.15
(almost a four point increase) behind No. 1 Utah (196.65), No. 2
Alabama and Michigan (196.425), the closest Super Six finish
ever.

This year, Alabama is top-seeded with a Regional qualifying
score of 198.075 (an average of 9.90 on each routine). Is Alabama
set to dominate this year’s championships? Could perfect team
scores of 200.000 be in store for the future?

"The thing is our rules haven’t changed since (1989), but the
athletes have gotten better," Kondos said. "But (Alabama’s top
seed) is a score thing; we’ll all be about the same this
weekend."

ANDREW SCHOLER/Daily Bruin

Amy Smith and the UCLA gymnastics team begin their battle for
the national title on Thursday.