May 12, 2004 (AP)

By NANCY ARMOUR    
AP Sports Writer

Carly Patterson could have been any of a million American teenage girls as she wandered through the local mall recently.

Until she noticed a couple of girls staring at her, that is.

"I was just looking in a store and they were like, `Hey, you're Carly Patterson!' I thought that was really cool," the 16-year-old gymnast said, giggling. "But it's only happened once."

Just wait.

As the top U.S. gymnast the past two years and the runner-up to Russian diva Svetlana Khorkina at last summer's world championships, Patterson has all the makings of the sport's next superstar. Talent. Poise. Determination. And a winsome smile, thanks to those braces that came off in February.

All that's keeping her from one-name status _ think Nadia and Mary Lou _ is an Olympic gold medal, and the Athens Games are only three months away.

"Any medal would be great," Patterson said. "But my ultimate goal would be to win."

Spend a few minutes with Patterson, and she seems like an ordinary teenager. She likes to shop and hang out with her friends. She listens to Beyonce, Justin Timberlake and Linkin Park.

She's already looking forward to college.

"I either want to be a dental hygienist or an orthodontist. I've always liked pretty, straight teeth," she said.

And she'll run any errand now that she's got a driver's license and a car.

Put her in a leotard and turn on the spotlight, though, and Patterson becomes one of a kind. Sure, she has the spectacular tricks and Gumby-like flexibility that all elite gymnasts have. But she also has the mental toughness that sets champions apart.

She's won all but two of the meets she's entered in the last two years, and was second at those other two. After winning the all-around silver and a team gold at worlds, she got home and discovered she had not one, but two stress fractures in her elbow. Coach Evgeny Marchenko said he's lost track of how many times he's stayed late at the gym because Patterson wants to work on something "just one more time."

"She's very balanced mentally. She's confident in her ability and she is willing to do an excellent job for herself," said Martha Karolyi, who along with husband Bela coached Mary Lou Retton and Nadia Comaneci before becoming coordinator of the U.S. women's team.

"That was also Mary Lou," Karolyi said. "She wouldn't try for anybody else. She did it because she wanted to be the best."

Patterson's been that way ever since she took up the sport at age 6 in Baton Rouge, La., after going to a cousin's birthday party at a local gym. While other kids bobbled and wobbled their way around the floor, Patterson did tricks with ease.

"Other parents were like, `You've got to put her in gymnastics," said Natalie Patterson, who was a gymnast growing up. "When she started trying backflips, it was either put her in classes or she was going to break her neck."

Four months after starting gymnastics lessons, Patterson entered her first meet. She finished 13th.

"You'd have thought it was first place," Natalie Patterson said. "She had her little trophy and I had pictures."

The family moved to Texas in 1999, spending one year in Houston before being moving to Dallas. That's when Patterson began training at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy, one of the nation's powerhouse gyms, and established herself as an up-and-comer.

In 2002, she won the U.S. junior title.

"I still didn't think about the Olympics," Natalie Patterson said. "I knew that Carly had a natural ability. But whether she could be the best or make the Olympics, I don't think I really thought about it then."

That all changed last year. Patterson won her first senior international title at the prestigious American Cup, whose past winners include Comaneci and Retton. A hairline fracture in her elbow kept her out of the national championships, but she healed in time for worlds and emerged as the team leader when world medalists Courtney Kupets, Ashley Postell and Annia Hatch got hurt.

She sealed the gold medal with a high-flying, hip-shaking saucy strut on the floor exercise that had the crowd and her teammates slapping hands and shouting "U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!" Two days later, she finished second to three-time champion Khorkina in the all-around, missing the gold medal by less than two-tenths of a point.

"It's pretty incredible ... to know that she's accomplished something that's been a dream for some time now," Natalie Patterson said, choking up as she recalled watching her daughter stand next to Khorkina on the podium.

Though Patterson had been having trouble with her elbow, she didn't realize she'd broken it again until she returned home. She had surgery in September and was out for three months.

But in February, she was back on top of the podium, defending her American Cup title at Madison Square Garden.

"I like performing in front of big crowds, it gives me a lot of adrenaline," she said. "Some people are nervous, but I like it better."

Good thing, because plenty of people will be watching her in Athens.

"I know my goals and what I want to do," she said. "I'm really looking forward to this year, seeing what's going to happen."