Khorkina Is Star of This Floor Show

Svetlana Khorkina is still the Queen, still capable of swatting away the perky little princesses who cavort at her long, pale feet and plot to dethrone her.

The 24-year-old Russian emoted, tumbled and twisted her way through an intricate and intense floor exercise routine Friday that was worthy of an Academy Award. It also proved worthy of her third all-around world title when Carly Patterson of the U.S., the last performer of the session at the World Gymnastics Championships, took a big hop forward on the landing of a vault and landed .188 behind Khorkina.

Usually so cool, so regal, Khorkina burst into tears upon learning she had won and buried her head on the shoulder of Anna Pilkina, one of her coaches. She had not qualified for the finals of the uneven bars, her signature event. “I am the queen,” she said in perfect English, “but I don’t know what’s going on here.” And to make things worse, Russia had not won a team medal.

But some order was restored to the gymnastics world at the Arrowhead Pond because Khorkina, an elegant, mature woman in a swarm of talented, exuberant girls, emerged triumphant with 38.124 points. Patterson, hampered by soreness in the left elbow she fractured this spring, won the silver medal with 37.936 points in her world championships debut and Zhang Nan of China finished third with 37.624 points. Chellsie Memmel of the U.S., like Patterson a favorite of the lively crowd of 11,110, finished eighth with 36.974 points.

As much as the fans cheered for Patterson and Memmel, they knew they were in the presence of greatness in the 5-foot-4 person of Khorkina. Patterson, 15, knew it, too.

“She’s a great gymnast and she did a great floor routine,” Patterson said. “She’s like an actress.”

But Khorkina wasn’t acting when her eyes moistened at the thought of someday leaving this stage she has claimed as her own.

“This world championship, for me, is very important because it is my last world championship,” said Khorkina, who won her first all-around world title in 1997, did not win in 1999 and reclaimed it in 2001. “But I go to Athens [for the 2004 Olympics]. You understand me, that will be my last competition.”

If her performance in becoming the first person ever to win three world all-around crowns wasn’t vintage Khorkina, it was close.

She was eighth behind China’s Zhang Nan after her first event, the vault. She moved to third behind Patterson and Nan with a 9.662 on the uneven bars, and rose to second behind Patterson with a 9.475 on the balance beam. She presented Patterson a nearly impossible task by posting a 9.675 on the floor exercise, ending her routine by drooping gracefully to the floor, arms outstretched and eyes closed, as if totally spent.

Patterson needed more than 9.45 to win. However, in deference to her elbow injury and the weeks it had idled her, she planned to do a Yurchenko 1 1/2, a vault with 1 1/2 twists and a start value of 9.7. She would have had to be perfect. The same vault with 2 1/2 twists would have had a start value of 10.0 and might have won her the title, but a miss might have left her without a medal.

“We just could not do it right now,” said Evgeny Marchenko, who coaches her at World Olympic Gymnastics Academy in Plano, Texas. “She was working on the Yurchenko double full before [her injury]. I didn’t want to take a chance.... We are not far behind. We’re very close. We’re a little disappointed because she was so close.”

So close, Marchenko hinted, that Patterson might have won had she been in prime shape.

“[Khorkina] did make her name years ago,” Marchenko said. “Her name works for her. But she did deserve it. To be so many years at the top of the world you must be that determined and strong.”

Memmel was determined, but too many competitions took a toll. Between the world team training camp, the Pan Am Games -- where she won gold in the team and all-around events -- being named an alternate to the world team and winning a spot in the lineup after a series of injuries and illnesses, she hasn’t been home to West Allis, Wis., since July 22.

“I was real excited to be out there. I wasn’t even supposed to be here,” said Memmel, who slipped from fifth to ninth after a flawed balance-beam performance in her third rotation.

Said her coach, Jim Chudy: “I’m really proud of her. She gave her all for the team [in the gold medal-winning U.S. effort Wednesday] and she’s a spent kid. I hope she has the energy to show what she can do in the bar and beam finals.”

Khorkina had the will and the fire of a champion Friday. “I think I gave many good gymnastics lessons for many kids in many countries,” she said.

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Hollie Vise of Dallas was added to the field for today’s uneven bars event final. She replaces Courtney Kupets, who tore her left Achilles tendon Tuesday.