Disappointing Olympics for Sacramone

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BEIJING -- She exhaled twice to settle her nerves and looked down the long and daunting runway.Alicia Sacramone had one last chance to salvage her Olympics, to brighten her dark memories with a golden one.She had fallen off the balance beam during the team competition. She believed, to her core, she had cost the United States the gold medal. Friends and teammates told her it wasn't her fault. Sacramone, 20, didn't believe them. Of course it was her fault. She had fallen. She had blown it. If she hadn't fallen, her teammates would have done better, and the Chinese would have felt more pressure and everything would have been different.At least she had the vault. This is what Sacramone told herself. She could return to the gym, to the scene of her misery, and win herself another medal.She exhaled twice to settle her nerves. She started down that long runway. She picked up speed and she gathered her body and . . . . TWO CLEAR BOXESHow about that Michael Phelps, anyway?What a remarkable Olympics that guy had. Eight races. Eight gold medals. And that was before the international swimming federation gave him an extra one."It's amazing what can happen when you imagine something," said Phelps, over and over.All you have to do is imagine. Dare to be great and greatness will follow.It's an inspirational message, certainly. But if it were true, how to explain Alicia Sacramone?She imagined winning gold medals, too. She imagined it since she was eight years old. "She watched the girls (win the gold) in 1996," said Fred Sacramone, Alicia's father. "She said, 'That looks cool, I want to do that.' "For the next 12 years, Sacramone devoted the better part of her life to gymnastics. She worked out seven hours a day, nearly every day, in pursuit of a gold medal.She took a leave of absence from Brown University to devote herself to making the Olympic team. Sure enough, she made it.All her dreams were coming true. It was exactly as she had imagined.And then Samantha Peszek hurt her ankle. That was the start of it. A week ago Sunday, during team preliminaries. Peszek sprained her ankle.This may seem like a small thing, but it meant that Sacramone was rushed into her floor exercise. The floor is Sacramone's best event. She won the world championship in 2006."I freaked out," Sacramone said.She didn't qualify for the individual finals in floor exercise.Still, there was the team competition. The Americans were favored. Sacramone stood and readied herself to do the balance beam when, OK, this was very odd. The light wasn't flashing green. Why wasn't the light flashing green? It was taking forever. It never took this long. Suddenly, Sacramone started thinking about where she was. At the Olympics. She couldn't blow it. "I started getting nervous," she said.She fell. After more than a decade of training, she fell."I cost us the gold," she said.Usually, Sacramone is the one who boosts up her teammates. That's been her role on the team. At the 2006 World Championships, after a couple team members made mistakes, Sacramone called everyone together for a rousing pep talk.Now she needed the pep talk. But at the same time, she wouldn't hear it."It was a hard couple days," she said.For Sacramone and her parents. "When you're back in your room and you try to sleep and you're lying there, and you think about all the dreams and the aspirations for the last 12 years, you get to the point where you go over what happened," said Fred Sacramone. "It's surreal. How could this happen?"All around them, people were talking about the golden boy. All around them, people were giddy with victories. "We look at Michael Phelps and we're so happy with what he achieved," said Fred Sacramone. "But you look at Alicia and she ends up almost being like the goat of the Olympics. That's a tough thing to handle."The long days passed. Sunday arrived, along with a chance for redemption in the individual vault competition.Sacramone was picked to go first. "When you go first, you pay," said Mihai Bresyan, Sacramone's coach. "The judges hold back scores because of what might come later."Now, the truth is, Sacramone is not the best vaulter in the world. She doesn't attempt the most difficult combinations.Sacramone needed a break or two in order to win a medal Sunday. Right at the start, she got one.Cheng Fei, the Chinese favorite, badly mangled her second jump, landing on her knees. That would surely put her behind Sacramone, who negotiated her easier combinations impeccably.Sacramone was awarded a 15.537. Cheng Fei was awarded a . . . 15.562? "It's disheartening," said Gail Sacramone, the gymnast's mother. "When she lands on her knees, she should get more of a deduction."Two more gymnasts were awarded better scores than Sacramone. Dare to be great and greatness will follow?What if it doesn't? What if imagining is not enough?After 12 years and one bitterly disappointing silver, Sacramone's Olympic dreams were over. "Well, I mean, I'm disappointed," she said, in the mixed zone afterward. She declined to criticize the judging."It was really stressful but it was a great learning experience," she said, eyes welling with tears.People don't dream of the Olympics as a great learning experience. They dream of it as a great experience, period. Gold medals. Glory. Sacramone had dreamed of the Olympics that Michael Phelps is living.But most of us aren't Phelps. Most of us are more like Sacramone. We dream for things we don't achieve. We stumble and fall, then chalk it up as a great learning experience.So by all means, draw on the inspiration of Phelps if you like. Imagine the impossible. Maybe it'll happen.If it doesn't, there's another athlete at these games you might want to keep an eye on. Sacramone is going back to Brown in January. "Maybe I'll be a better person," she said, though it sounded more like a vow.She was already re-imagining.(Contact Geoff Calkins of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., at Calkins(at)commercialappeal.com.)