Coach Karolyi calls Zmeskal “a natural beamer” and insists she’s never fallen off. Kim grimaces when she hears that because she vividly recalls falling off during one meet. But that was years ago. Under the tutelage of Marta Karolyi, Bela’s wife and silent partner, and perhaps the best beam coach in the world, Kim has developed an increasingly difficult routine, including a second series of back somersaults. The result was a surprising gold medal at the world championships in Paris. “Now Kim looks so confident on the beam,” says Mary Lou Retton, “it’s as if she’s on the floor.”
Not always. At the Olympic trials in Baltimore, Zmeskal had a shaky performance, but she shrugs it off. “I can’t be perfect all the time,” she says. But if her legs trembled, her mental toughness was absolute steel. “On the beam, you can give up easy,” Karolyi says. “When you’re losing your balance, you might say, ‘I’m out of it. I have to step down’.” At the trials, Kim wobbled three time&-but never fell off.
