What a fun morning! The newly formed Uzbekistan Fan Club Internationale followed La Presidente Rachelle into town to buy some magic markers to draw a Uzbek flag or banner to wave during this afternoon’s AA. We wandered about town until we came across an art shop and from a simple hand-drawn flag it quickly ballooned out of control. We bought a pocket atlas with the Uzbek flag, found the closest match of colour papers and started work there and then in the store. Penguin was fantastic. He did all the minutiae measuring of paper and cutting them into proportion. He too lettered beautiful the extra strips of paper with the letters ‘UZBEKISTAN’. I did my little bit by inking the 3-D letters. Karen cut the stars. There are 12 of them in the Uzbek flag. We cheated. There are only 5 on our version. Carefully cut and gingerly Scotch-taped on. Neat work folks! We were there for almost 2 hours! This was our idea of going and walking around town in the morning before the meets, huh?

Shock! History repeats itself once again. Alexandra MARINESCU has been shunted aside to make way for Simona AMANAR. We were sitting in our designated areas which was near where a lot of the gymnasts stroll in to sit, when Michelle let out a gasp of dismay, "Oh no!" Who did we spy walking in to take a seat near us but MARINESCU. Poor lass! Just as in the Olympics, her rightful AA place has been taken by AMANAR. True, AMANAR is a surer bet than MARINESCU but you can’t help feeling very sorry for the latter. Always second fiddle. What is needed is not all the arguments about whether such a thing should be allowed but a change of the rules. Why must there be a 3 per country limit? If 6 girls from Russia or Romania qualifies, then there should be 6 in the AA. We are talking about the best in the world, right? That’s my 2 cents worth of opinion.

Folks asked us what flag we were carrying as we entered and staked out our row. Lousy seats. Great view of the parallel bars and the high bar, but abysmal for the vault. Can hardly see the landing. We waved (or rather ‘placed’) the flag. We seemed happy just holding the flag and the banner strips. I don’t think Anastasya noticed us, but Alexandra GORDEEVA was saluting the judges on the Floor when she caught sight of a familiar looking flag, squinted, and waved at us! Cheap thrills!

KHORKINA executed a beautiful bars routine. She was lagging behind and needed 9.81 to win. Her last apparatus was also her best. The house went up in a roar after her UB routine. We kept on clapping and clapping in rhythm til the scores were posted. She got an amazing 9.85. AA champion! It must have been quite a nervous wait for Khorkina before she went up and wowed us, for there was one cameraman who continued to train his camera on her ALL THE TIME, even though there were others doing the routine. Leave her alone! She’s got enough pressure as it is. You should have seen the commotion was her scores were posted. Cameras swarmed all over her corner. Congratulations were exchanged and bodies were hugged. Uzbek Head Coach Mrs K went over and gave Khorkina a huge hug. Isn’t that lovely of her! No one paid much attention to the girl following Khorkina. Methinks she was from Kazkhstan. Poor lass.

Not a good day for Anastasya, she brought up the rear of the three Uzbeks who qualified for AA. They came in 26th, 32nd and 33rd. Like Rachelle said, "I don’t think they would like to be reminded of that." We managed to pass our home-made flag to Saida BOBOEVA with all our well wishes scrawled on behind (left photo).

Khorkina had to be escorted out between two guards to prevent her from being mobbed. She looked really relieved and happy and we all applauded her as she was wisked away. No more nose-in-the-air-go-away-look tonight.

During dinner, we shared a table with workers/technicians and all were wondering which city won the bid to host the 2004 Olympics. The nice chap next to me actually asked over his walkie talkie but to no avail. They left but later came back to say, "Guess which one?" And yup, it’s Athens. It should have been Athens for 1996, then there won’t be the farce that was Atlanta. We all gave a loud clap to Athens.

After dinner, I wandered about waiting for the Men’s AA to start and yes, as expected by now, ran into the Uzbeks again, outside the Village. No, no, we are seriously not stalking them!

It was back to the arena for the Men’s AA final. Surprise surprise! NEMOV fell from the rings!?!! Got a 6-something score. What a shocker! It transpired later that his grip broke and there was nothing he could do in the given grace period to replace it and get on again. Another shocker – NEMOV had the most hideous looking leotard on ever! Good grief, what possessed him to wear that white, red and blue exploding thing!?! I believe Ivan IVANKOV fell off the pommel horse. But, wow! He came back with a vengeance and won the Championship! Very impressive.

A reporter friend told us that in the press interviews it was revealed MARINESCU voluntarily stepped aside for AMANAR and that the latter thanked the former for giving her the chance to compete in the AA. Oh well, believe it or not, up to you.

Now here’s the really funny bit: The UZBEKISTAN FAN CLUB INTERNATIONALE is on Swiss TV!?!!?! It was hilarious! We were on TWICE! And both times we had no idea we were being filmed. We were looking in different directions, holding our homemade banners and flag and not doing a single thing with them. And what was really surprising is: with all the big guns in the arena, TSR actually showed THREE Uzbek routines! What can you say?!!

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