M O

IG takes an alphabetical look at
the news makers from last year
ABOVE: Komova

EILEEN LANGSLEY/IG (DONG); THOMAS SCHREYER (KOMOVA, BELLU); DEBBIE POE (CAL)

AGE

IT took 10 years, but China was finally busted for adding two years to the passport of Dong Fangxiao, who helped her team win the bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. That medal was ceremoniously presented to the U.S. women (Amy Chow, Jamie Dantzscher, Dominique Dawes, Kristen Maloney, Elise Ray and Tasha Schwikert) during a bittersweet reunion at the Visa Championships in Hartford, Conn., in August.

Soon after, the North Korean
Federation was banned for two
years for submitting three different
birth years for Hong Su Jong, just
as it had for 1991 world bars cham-
pion Kim Gwang Suk. It might have
worked had Su Jong not had a twin
sister, Hong Un Jong, who happens
to be the 2008 Olympic champion
on vault!

adviser for all Romanian sports, but his heart remained with only one: gymnastics.

So when the Romanian federation asked Bellu and Bitang to help revive the middling women’s team, Nicolae Forminte, Bellu’s vocal predecessor, quit in a huff.

Bellu, 59, traveled with the Romanian team to the Rotterdam worlds, where budding superstar Ana Porgras won the gold on balance beam, the first such title for

Romania since 2001, when Andreea Raducan was queen of the beam. In Porgras’ triumph, Romanian pride was restored for the time being.

Dong
Bellu

BELLU FROM 1994-2005, Octavian Bellu and assistant Mariana Bitang coached the Romanian women’s team to five consecutive world team titles (1994, ’95, ’97, ’99, 2001) and Olympic victories in 2000 and ’04. Bellu took a job as an

CALIFORNIA

THE Sept. 28 news that California-Berkeley was cutting men’s gymnastics after the 2011 season rattled the entire men’s collegiate gymnastics family, especially Stanford, which will become the only men’s team on the west coast.

Cal is not gone yet. Former Golden Bear star Tim McNeill was hired to replace the retired Barry Weiner, and his contract expires in August. Cal alumni are hoping to keep the program alive via an Endowment Campaign, with a goal of $1 million by July 1, 2011, and $7 million overall.