Allyse Ishino gymnast.(olympic athlete)(Biography)

Byline: Sarah Haight

They embody the Olympic dream, the pixies who tumble across the mats, ponytails and grosgrain ribbons flying, their tiny faces a study in adolescent grit. Long after the torch has been extinguished, the gymnasts are the ones we remember most: Olga. Nadia. Mary Lou.

Allyse Ishino is determined to be one of them. Born in 1988, four years after Mary Lou Retton launched a thousand bowl cuts, Ishino exudes a fearlessness and grace that some say will most likely land her on the six-person women's team poised to take center stage in Athens. Never mind that up until recently, Carly Patterson, a Texas tenth-grader who led the U.S. team to a world-championship victory last year, was considered the sole Olympic poster girl. Gymnastics is a sport of suspense: a miscalculation of mere centimeters can mean the difference between a clean landing and a disastrous fall. Even the best-trained gymnasts experience on and off days, and in April, Ishino, who performs more like a ballerina than a tumbler, was definitely on-surpassing Patterson by .0666 of a point to win the all-around gold at the Pacific Alliance Championships in Honolulu. "I think everyone realized what I've known for a long time," says Stephen Rybacki, Ishino's coach. "She's an exceptional athlete."

Even so, those who knew her growing up in Santa Ana, California, might not have guessed that gymnastics would be her sport of choice. Unlike most gymnasts, who tell tales of doing cartwheels from the couch as toddlers, Ishino was rarely rambunctious. Her father, Glen Ishino, says that they called her "the cruiser" when she was a child. "She has a relaxedness about her that's very soothing," he explains. "She was never one to bounce off the walls."

That self-discipline has worked to her advantage. Ishino spends six hours a day, six days a week, moving from event to event with equal rigor and focus. As a result, she's as adept on the four-inch-wide beam as on ...