Powell, Atler Share U.S. Title Gymnastics Competition Ends In Tie For First Time Since 1972

Kristy Powell made up .65 points on the final apparatus and tied 15-year-old Vanessa Atler for the women’s all-around title Saturday night in the U.S. Gymnastics Championships.

Powell, 17, was in second place, behind Atler, after Thursday’s preliminaries, and maintained that position through the first three of Saturday’s four events.

Powell, scars still visible on her legs from surgery in May to relieve pressure on her calf muscles, scored a 9.3 on her final routine, the balance beam. Atler, leading by .65 points going into that event, then fell from the uneven bars and got an 8.65, producing the tie.

Powell, a native of River Forest, Ill., who trains in Cincinnati, and Atler, of Canyon Country, Calif., each finished with 74.612 points.

Rules do not provide a tiebreaker.

Mohini Bhardwaj was third at 74.212, followed by Kristen Maloney (73.862), Lindsay Wing (73.712) and Jamie Dantzscher (73.587).

The U.S. meet is a qualifier for the world championships, but Atler, at 15, doesn’t meet a rule that requires competitors in the worlds to be at least 16 years old by the end of this year.

The top six finishers qualify for the U.S. team that will compete in the world championships Aug. 31-Sept. 7 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

But because Atler, Wing and Dantzscher are too young to compete on the world team, the seventh-, eighth- and ninth-place finishers moved up. That means Jennie Thompson, Kendall Beck and Dominique Moceanu will join Powell, Bhardwaj and Maloney at the worlds.

Moceanu was the only member of the gold medal-winning 1996 U.S. Olympic team in the competition.

It was the first tie for the women’s all-around at the nationals since 1972, when Joan Moore and Cathy Rigby were co-champions.