By NANCY STOCKDALE • nstockdale@dmreg.com • June 19, 2008 Philadelphia, Pa.
Shawn Johnson in the Olympic Trials. The favorite. The music. The flowers. The medals. The sublime smile.
It will happen this weekend. Kim Zmeskal saw it years ago.
Zmeskal, the U.S. gymnastics champion from 1990-92, visited the gym where Johnson trains in West Des Moines when Johnson was still a rambunctious kid, before she was a teen idol.
Zmeskal saw a champion. She visualized a coronation.
She called her husband, Chris Burdette, at the gym they run in Coppell, Texas.
"She can run the floor and do a double full with no warmup," an excited Zmeskal said. "She's ready, set, go. Always. When she goes, she goes. Nothing's halfway."
Johnson, 16, is still the youthful daredevil, but is infused with a mature, singular sense of purpose. She is driven to be more compelling, more striking than the rest. She has channeled that bravado into the all-around world championship, and the United States is counting on her to be a 4-foot-9 giant as it challenges China, Russia and Romania for team gold, the ultimate prize, in August in Beijing.
The story starts rushing toward its dramatic ending Friday at the Wachovia Center. Johnson and 18 other hopefuls will compete in the first round of a two-round event that will determine two automatic qualifiers for the six-member U.S. squad.
A committee that selects the remainder of the team could name more members at the conclusion of Sunday night's prime-time final round. Or it could wait to name the other four after a July 20 selection camp at the national training center outside Houston.
Dreams will become real - or become sawdust - in the coming days.
"All the training, all the preparation is geared toward the Olympic Games," said Sam Peszek, 16, of Indianapolis, who helped the Americans win team gold last year at the world championships. "I want it bad."
Johnson is just as blunt.
"It means more to me than anybody could imagine," she said.
So her senses will be in overdrive.
"I have always loved the feeling of pressure and nerves that you get," she said. "I love the adrenaline rush."
Johnson is keenly expectant of the possibilities. So is her mentor.
"I'm just so hopeful," Zmeskal said.
