Gym trials start well for Ray

Bela Karolyi coached the legendary Nadia Comaneci

The selection for the American Olympic gymnastics squad will come to a head when national coach Bela Karolyi picks his six to go to Sydney at the end of the national trials.

The Americans were hoping to replace the missing gymnasts from Atlanta four years ago with the young up-and-coming generation, but for Karolyi and the selection committee, it will prove a hard task.

The finals are on Sunday evening and weighted scores from the national trials, which count 60%, and the US Gymnastics Championships, which count 40%, will be combined to rank each gymnasts.

On the first day of the trials, national champion Elise Ray took first place at the trials after only registering one score below 9.5.

Excited

"I'm very excited with how everything worked out, but at the same time, I'm looking forward to getting in the gym tomorrow and fixing the little details," she said.

Amy Chow finished second, putting her in a good position to securing a place in Sydney.

But neither Shannon Miller or Dominic Dawes made the overall top six.

Shannon is right there. It's very, very much going to depend on her performance in the coming day

  Bela Karolyi

Miller is down in 11th place overall, but that is partly due to her withdrawal from the nationals after one event because of a hairline fracture in her right leg.

But Karolyi offered reassurances regarding Miller's prospects of making the final squad.

He said: "Shannon is right there. It's very, very much going to depend on her performance in the coming days."

"I'm going for perfection Sunday."

Meanwhile, Vanessa Atler took a bad fall when she landed flat on her back after her beam dismount.

She said: "I just got overly excited. I was doing a good beam routine and I haven't done a good beam routine in a while."

"It looked worse than it was."