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"I just felt like a kid in a candy store," said Bhavsar, 27, who was brought up from an alternate's limbo when Paul Hamm, the defending all-around champion, withdrew. "This is the beginning. It's all coming true. It feels very good inside."
Four years ago in Athens, Bhavsar was the kid with his nose pressed up against the window of that candy store while his teammates, guys he'd won two world silver medals with, gorged themselves on the Olympic experience. When the Hamm twins and the rest of the U.S. sextet stood on the award stand with silver medals around their necks, Bhavsar was sitting in the stands, both delighted and tormented.
"Once I got to Athens and I was watching that meet take place, it sank in how difficult it is to come so close, to be given a free ticket to the Olympic Games as an athlete and then have to watch it," said Bhavsar. "That is a very tough emotion to swallow, but I had to put my personal ambition aside for the team. It's a selfless position to be an alternate. I couldn't have been happier for those guys when they garnered that medal. In a way, we were all part of that. Every gymnast back home was a part of that. Team USA goes a lot deeper than just the six guys here."
Except that only those six guys get to compete. In track and swimming, the relay alternates compete in the prelims and get medals if their teams make the podium. In gymnastics, the alternates get a free trip and free tickets but they get no medals and no Stuff and their names don't appear in the record book as the guys who were next in line.
But the alternates still have to stay in shape, just in case. Gymnastics is a sport where a snagged finger or an awkward landing can change a lineup in a blink of an eye. At the 2003 world championships in Anaheim, half of the U.S. women's team went down within a couple of days. Chellsie Memmel, who'd been an alternate to the alternate, ended up competing in every event and won a gold medal.
Most of the time, though, the alternates spend weeks preparing for a moment that never comes. Bhavsar had done it once and found it extraordinarily difficult to stay motivated. "You have to dig to the center of your heart," he said.
He'd come close to making the 2004 team in the post-trials camp and he was even closer this time, missing one of the two automatic spots by .09 points after 24 events at the national championships in Houston and Olympic trials in Philadelphia.
When the coaches filled out the roster and Bhavsar found himself odd man out again, he told himself that his performance, one of the best of his life, was reward enough.
"I said there was no extrinsic award that was going to take away my sense of inner accomplishment and that is true," said Bhavsar. "But I found out as the days progressed that living those words is actually a challenge. I'll be the first to tell you, it's no easy task. I had to continuously dig down deep and reach into the toolbox at times and pull out the proper tool in order to keep me going and keep me motivated."
Nowthe door to the candy store finally has swung open, both for him and Alexander Artemev (who replaced Morgan Hamm last week), and Bhavsar vowed to savor everything on the shelves. He had seen the Olympic rings as an alternate, but he'd felt an outsider. What he wanted was to feel the rings.
"I want the whole thing," he said. "I want the whole journey, the whole package." *
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