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Sunday, July 23, 2000 By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- A 102-degree fever didn't stop Kristen Maloney from competing in the state gymnastics championships one year; in fact, after a slow start she actually won the meet.
Osgood-Schlatter disease didn't keep Maloney out of the gym the year she turned 12. "She might have missed a day, but the next day she was back out there," said Donna Strauss, one of Maloney's coaches at Parkettes Gymnastics Club. "Other kids took weeks when they couldn't tumble or vault."
So anyone who doesn't consider Maloney, 18, a favorite to win her third consecutive all-around championship this week at the U.S. National Gymnastics Championships, even though she had a rod placed in her right leg last October, had surgery on her left shoulder three weeks later and didn't get back to serious training until five months ago ... well, those people haven't been paying attention.
Maloney doesn't use her injuries -- or her aches and pains -- as an excuse. Quite the opposite.
"We'll go into a meet, and she'll tell me flat out she doesn't feel anything," said Jack Carter, another of Maloney's coaches. "Then when it's over she's like 'Ahhhhh. Ahhhh.' But if you focus your energies on what you're doing, you have no time to do anything else. I think she does that probably better than anyone in our country."
She has proved it time and time again, most recently while winning her two national championships.
Maloney actually came close to winning the all-around at the 1997 nationals, but she fell twice on the uneven bars, both times on a release move called a ginger. She went back to the gym and drilled the move until she felt confident. She gradually improved, too; at the 1997 world championships, she made the finals on floor exercise and balance beam, and her 13th-place finish in the all-around was the best by an American woman.
In June 1998, however, Maloney began feeling a pain in her lower right leg while doing front tucks on the floor exercise. Doctors diagnosed a stress fracture in her tibia, and Maloney needed to back off her training significantly.
Still, even though she hadn't trained as hard as she wanted, Maloney won her first national championship.
The victory wasn't all she had hoped; the way some observers saw it, Maloney won only because Vanessa Atler, who had received plenty of pre-event media attention, fell twice. Maloney, who loves to surf the Internet, was shocked to discover that many fans acted as if her triumph were simply a fluke, that Atler was the true champion except for those falls.
"Well, that's what the sport is -- who hits and who doesn't fall," Maloney said. "That's the whole point. The whole under pressure thing, you know."
Maloney's leg still hurt. So after returning from nationals, she had another X-ray taken, and the radiologist thought he saw a tumor. Her coaches made her an appointment at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and although the radiologist called back and said he thought he had jumped the gun, she kept the appointment anyway.
Doctors said they were 99 percent sure there was no tumor. But they recommended four months of rest with an X-ray each month just to make sure.
Even when she couldn't really work out, Maloney kept coming to the gym. She did upper-body work. Took dance classes. Stayed in as good a shape as possible, and when the final X-ray came back OK, she returned to full practices.
In March 1999, after only six weeks of training, Maloney finished second in the all-around in a meet with China and Romania. But gradually the stress fracture -- and the pain -- returned. And got worse.
Maloney could barely train for the 1999 national championships. She spent so much time resting her legs that her left shoulder started to hurt. "I was overdoing my upper body because of my shins," she said.
She was determined, however, to defend her title. And she did.
"I think inside she felt that people didn't believe in her," Strauss said. "She still wasn't getting the recognition that the national champion should be getting. Not that she needs that, but these kids are smart. They see what TV's doing. She felt like she still had something to prove. I think her feeling was, 'Now I've won twice, now will they believe I am the champion?' "
The victory was nice, but Maloney realized that she needed a more permanent solution to her injury. After much deliberation with her parents and coaches, she decided to have a rod inserted to take stress off the tibia.
"I wanted to watch, but they wouldn't let me," Maloney said. "I guess he really had to hammer it in."
Maloney got a second "disappointment" when she realized that her rod wasn't going to set off metal detectors in airports. And a third, far more serious one, when she realized that she needed shoulder surgery, too.
Said Strauss, "It just seemed really dismal at that point."
By February, Maloney was practicing again. Upper body, lower body and one other special thing -- not showing the judges that at times, her leg still hurts. Said Maloney, "I don't really feel it until it goes numb. I practice trying not to wince."
As soon as she could, Maloney began attending training camps at U.S. Coach Bela Karolyi's Texas compound; her coaches think they helped her return quicker. Said Strauss, "She doesn't like to look like she's not leading the pack. It drove her."
This week's national championships are the first step of the Olympic selection process, which continues with next month's Olympic trials in Boston.
Maloney's coaches think that far from being a disadvantage, her struggles with injuries may actually help her through the selection process.
"She's thinking, 'Hey, if I can do this, this meet's a cakewalk,' " Carter said. "She had a reality check."
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