random.gauss vs. random.normalvariate

[Alan G Isaac]

Quoting http://docs.python.org/3.1/library/random.html#random.gauss:
    Gaussian distribution. mu is the mean, and sigma is the
    standard deviation. This is slightly faster than the
    normalvariate() function defined below.

So since both are offered and gauss is faster, I assume it
must have some offsetting disadvantage.  What is it?

Thank you,
Alan Isaac