8/11/2004 » Olympics, Profiles

Mohini Bhardwaj was elected team captain today during the U.S. women’s gymnastics team’s run at gold this Olympics year. The vote was unanimous. It’s a bit of a surprise since she was one of the last chosen for the team, but only ex-Cuban gymnast Annia Hatch outranks her in seniority (Hatch is 26, Bhardwaj is 25). Both are the oldest female U.S. gymnasts in the Olympics in 40 years.

Mohini Bhardwaj's already impressive story just got a little better. Bhardwaj, who is one of the oldest female gymnasts in the Athens Games at 25, was selected as captain of the U.S. women's gymnastics team. "From a year ago, if you had taken odds on her making our Olympic team -- even the odds of making it to nationals -- she just continues to impress," USA Gymnastics president Bob Colarossi said Wednesday.

At just 95 lbs., Bhardwaj is also the lightest Olympian this year. She was quite the wild child before spending the entire last year in intensive training for her Olympics bid.

She smoked, skipped classes, took up with a gang.  She won a full scholarship to UCLA, where she kept on partying and finished 10th at the Olympic team trials in 1996. She was, according to UCLA Coach Valerie Kondos Field, "a poster child for everything that's good and bad about gymnastics."

Her day job was even lyricized by ’80s band Human League:

By the time she got serious about the Olympics, Bhardwaj was in her 20s competing against teenagers. Living in L.A., she worked two jobs at a pizza joint and as a waitress in a cocktail lounge so she could train 40 hours a week. She maxed out credit cards to keep her dream alive.

As specialists, it’s possible that Bhardwaj and Hatch may only compete in the vault, though Bhardwaj hopes to be sent out for the uneven bars and balance beam:

She anticipates competing on bars and maybe balance beam in the team preliminaries, in which each team sends out five gymnasts on each apparatus. She also hopes to perform on floor exercise but wouldn't begrudge Hatch that spot.

Expectations are high, the hype machine is cranking up:

It's expected they will win gold. The team is considered the strongest ever assembled by the United States. Even Mary Lou Retton, still the icon of U.S. gymnastics 20 years after winning all-around Olympic gold in Los Angeles, said this could be the best group her country has sent to the Games. "This team is so good and so deep," Retton said, "they could send the C or D team and still win a medal."

And she’s become an inspiration to mature jocks and athletic late bloomers everywhere. The punishing isolation of Olympics training gives the mentally hardcore a real advantage:

Somewhere along the way she became a patron saint for gymnasts who thought they'd have to hang up their leotards if they weren't Olympians by 18... She's performing for herself, her ardor apparent in every swing on the uneven bars and every twist of her tricky vaults. "Mentally, that's what's strong about her. She told me, 'I'll work harder than ever before and do more routines.' "... "I don't think age comes into play with Mo... she's in the best shape of her life."