BEIJING — Shawn Johnson had dark circles under her brown eyes and a headache, but when she jumped onto the balance beam Tuesday she switched on her smile and defiantly pounded out a gold medal routine.
It wasn’t the gold Johnson wanted. She had come here as the favorite to win the all-around title, had hoped to lead the U.S. team to a gold medal, had hoped to defend her world championship on floor exercise and add to that a balance beam gold medal.
But through a succession of silvers — team, all-around, floor — Johnson, 16, of West Des Moines, Iowa, stuck out her chin, wiped away tears and insisted that silver was just as nice as gold. Tuesday night, finally, she said something else.
“This gold means more than anything to me,” Johnson said. “Beam is my favorite event, and I’ve worked hardest on this for a long time. It’s the perfect ending to my Olympic experience.”
The balance beam final ended in a 1-2 finish for the United States, with Nastia Liukin getting the silver. China’s Cheng Fei won the bronze.
Liukin, an 18-year-old from Parker, Texas, will go home as the American gymnastics star. The balance beam silver was Liukin’s fifth medal of the Olympics, tying her with Mary Lou Retton (1984) and Shannon Miller (1992) as having the most for a U.S. woman in a single Olympics. Liukin wound up with one gold, three silver and one bronze.
Johnson had been touted as the potential record-setter, and her accomplishment Tuesday left her subdued. As the national anthem played, Johnson put her hand over her heart and swallowed hard and didn’t crack a smile or let go of a sob.
In two weeks here, through practices and qualifying, team competition and individual battles, it was as if the totality of her Olympic experience, both the losses and the wins, turned Johnson from a bouncy high school sophomore into a contemplative grown-up.
“I wouldn’t turn in one of my silver medals for a gold,” Johnson said afterward. “They all mean something special. I learned from them all.”
Her Beijing-born coach Liang Chow said Johnson had needed to do extra practice routines earlier Tuesday, and during a final warmup Johnson had two unusual stumbles. He also said that Johnson had brought a headache with her to the arena.
But when her turn came up for real, sixth out of eight in the lineup but before Liukin, Johnson lit up the National Indoor Stadium. She fought hard twice for landings on tumbling passes and she took a small step on her landing, but Johnson’s start value is higher than Liukin’s and her score of 16.225 put her safely ahead of Cheng.
Liukin’s elegant beam dance is slightly less difficult than Johnson’s, so even though she moved lightly across the beam and also had only a single noticeable bobble, the winner was obvious.
When the scores were final and Johnson owned the gold, Bela Karolyi leaped to his feet and pumped his fist. He said Johnson’s gold was a special show of perseverance. “She has gone through a lot, that little one,” he said.
Combined with the men’s team bronze and Jonathan Horton’s unexpected high bar silver medal Tuesday, the U.S. won 10 gymnastics medals, one more than at the Athens Olympics.
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