Gymnastics Don't Call Them Pixies!

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During training, both have a reputation for being "all business." Each works in silence with steely concentration, coming down hard on herself when a move isn't going right and sometimes getting teary with frustration. Away from the gym, both are straight A students who particularly like math. Each is compulsively neat, and both are so well organized that they answer every piece of fan mail by hand. Favorite TV shows are mutual: Cosby and Arsenio Hall. Zmeskal thinks an appearance on Arsenio would be cool; all color drains out of Miller's pale complexion when the possibility is mentioned. Both are religious (Zmeskal is Catholic, Miller a Christian Scientist), but it is not a subject either carts out in public. Come competition time, they have ferocious concentration, composure and consistency. Though neither is exactly fiery off the mats, both can electrify audiences.

But there the similarities stop. Whereas competition is an acquired taste for Miller, Zmeskal thrives on the audience adulation and pressure. "Since she was little, she was always liking to be watched and admired," says Zmeskal's Romanian-born coach, Bela Karolyi. "She was always a little showgirl." Zmeskal's boosters are confident that, win or lose, she will perform at her best in Barcelona.

The husband-and-wife coaching team of Bela and Martha Karolyi have produced several Olympic champions, among them Nadia Comaneci (1976) and Mary Lou Retton (1984). Zmeskal was among the first 200 students to sign on when the Karolyis opened their Houston gym in 1982, and they fully expect her to bring home the all-around gold. Bela says that of the more than 4,000 girls he has coached in Romania and the U.S., not one of them can touch the competitive drive of the one whom he early on dubbed the Little Pumpkin, and now calls Kimbo. "She has an outstanding capability to pull herself together and perform consistently under pressure," he says. "You can see on her face that she'll do it, no matter what." Not even pain stops her. At the 1991 nationals, the stress fracture in Zmeskal's wrist ached so badly that she couldn't grab the uneven bars. Come competition time, though, she nailed every routine.

Such determination and poise have made the blue-eyed, strawberry blond a three-time U.S. champion and the first American ever to secure an all-around world title. That triumphant moment, in the fall of 1991, was soured by grousing from the Unified Team that Zmeskal had won only because the meet was held on American turf, in Indianapolis. The following April in Paris, when world competitors duked it out for medals on the four individual events, Zmeskal coolly answered her critics by capturing gold on both floor exercise and the balance beam. To date, it is her proudest achievement.

Zmeskal's fantasy of Barcelona is telling. "I imagine it being really bright," she says. "I'm like this little person, and the whole world is watching." How is she faring under the bright lights? "I'm just doing my thing, pulling it off." Spectators who expect another bubbly Mary Lou will be disappointed. "She makes me nervous when I watch her compete," says Retton, both a friend and mentor. "Kim doesn't show any kind of emotion." Instead, the 80-lb. Zmeskal wears a glassy stare and becomes intensely quiet, turning all her strengths inward.