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August 12, 2004 7:09 pm

Gymnastics judge ready to monitor the mats

By Bryce Miller

The Des Moines Register

JEFFERSON, Iowa - If controversy finds the sport that introduced us to Nadia and Olga and Mary Lou, Jackie Fie will stand in the middle of the world-televised fray.

"I hope there isn't any problem like that," Fie said, "but if it pops up - I will be there to help correct it."

Fie an Olympic gymnast in 1956, is the women's artistic gymnastics technical delegate for the Summer Games that begin Aug. 13 in Athens, Greece. She is also third-term president of the women's technical committee of the International Gymnastics Federation.

Since competing in the 1956 Melbourne Games, she has been part of 11 Olympics.

"I missed two of them (Rome, 1960 and Tokyo, 1964)," Fie said, "because I was having babies."

In the 1970s, Fie became the first American elected to the international technical committee of the International Gymnastics Federation.

Sitting matside as a judge in 1976 when 14-year-old Nadia Comaneci of Romania stunned the Olympic world with the first perfect 10 in an event was an unforgettable moment.

"It was fantastic," Fie said. "She had exceeded the rule book - but I didn't give her a 10."

The biggest Olympic memory, though, had nothing to do with dismounts.

Fie was one of the faces at the Mexico City stadium in 1968 when Bob Beamon flew through the air in the long jump and demolished the world record by nearly two feet.

"The whole stadium went bananas," she said.

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