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KERRI STRUG
Official website: www.strug.org
Kerri Allyson Strug (born November 19, 1977) is an American gymnast from Tucson, Arizona.
Strug was trained by the legendary coach Béla Károlyi, and joined the United States National Team in 1991.
In 1992, at age 14, she won a team bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics, at which she was the youngest member of the entire
U.S. team. Karolyi retired from coaching after the 1992 Games, leaving Strug to decide whether to continue or quit gymnastics.
During this time, she switched gyms multiple times. Shortly after Károlyi's retirement, Kerri moved to Dynamo to
train under the coaching of Steve Nunno. At the 1993 Nationals, Kerri placed 3rd in the all-around, 2nd on the uneven bars,
and 3rd on floor exercise. She completed a soon-to-be-popular vault, the Yurchenko 1/2, however, she had a weak second vault
and did not medal in that event. After this competition, Strug left Dynamo to train at Forster Gymnastics in Colorado.
1994 was supposed to be her comeback year, but at the U.S. Classic in Palm Springs, CA she had a disaster on the uneven bars.
While performing the compulsory uneven bars set (a giant to front giant to low bar catch) she pinged off the bar, subsequently
releasing too early to be able to make the transition to low bar. She lost control and flew off the high bar backwards, landing
in a twisted position on her side beneath the low bar. She curled up on the mat, gasping and struggling to breathe from the
pain, and was carried out of the gym on a stretcher and was taken to Desert Regional Hospital. The injury turned out to be a
badly pulled back muscle, which required extensive rehabilitation; amazingly, she recovered in time for the 1994 World
Championships. There, she looked better than ever on the floor exercise with a powerful double layout mount and a full
twisting double back. At the 1995 Nationals, Strug placed 5th in the all-around and came in 3rd on the uneven bars. Kerri gave an impressive
display at the 1995 World Team Trials, especially on floor exercise. At the 1995 World Championships, she was a member of the
bronze medal-winning U.S. team, and she placed 7th in the all-around. Her floor exercise was by far the most improved routine of
the four.
1996 was the best year for Kerri. Károlyi came out of retirement, and Kerri returned to his gym to prepare for
the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta. Kerri's most impressive moment was arguably her win at the 1996 American Cup.
She dominated the competition in the all-around by almost 0.5 points, which was a huge margin under the old scoring system.
She also placed 1st on floor and balance beam and 2nd on vault and uneven bars in the event finals. At the 1996 U.S. Nationals,
Kerri placed 5th in the all-around and came in 2nd on both vault and floor. Her momentum was building, and she had finally
escaped from the shadow of world-famous gymnasts like
Shannon Miller,
Kim Zmeskal, and
Dominique Moceanu. Kerri's time had come.
Her shining moment came during these Games, as a member of the U.S. women's team, often referred to as the "Magnificent 7" for
their talent and depth. After compulsories, Kerri was ranked 9th overall and had placed high enough to qualify herself for
the all-around. She posted the second highest score on floor exercise (second to
Lilia Podkopayeva) and 4th highest on vault, and would qualify her for event
finals in her two strongest events. In the team competition, an event dominated by the Russians for decades and never
won by the United States, the U.S. and Russian teams battled neck and neck. The Russians came into the team competition
with a very narrow lead, but the U.S. had the benefit of being on their home turf. The event came down to the final rotation
on the final day of the team competition, July 23.
With a record 40,000 spectators packed into the Georgia Dome for an early afternoon meet (held at that hour to comply with
requests of the European Broadcast Union), the United States turned in a nearly flawless performance that had the seemingly
invincible Russians on the brink of defeat. In the final rotation, the U.S. women had already achieved a convincing victory
due to their wide margin over the Russian team, but those on the floor believed that the U.S. team still needed a single
good score on the vault to win gold. But Strug's teammate Dominique Moceanu fell
on both of her vaults, registering poor scores. Strug, who up to that point in her career had been overshadowed by better-known
teammate Shannon Miller, was the last to vault for the United States.
Like Moceanu, Strug fell on her first attempt, and stood up, shaking out her ankle, which she had wrenched in her fall.
She limped to the end of the runway for her second attempt. In a moment that would become one of the most famous of those
Olympic Games, she landed the vault perfectly on one foot, sealing the women's team gold with a lofty score of 9.712.
Strug raised her arms after her vault, saluting the judges, hopped around and raised them again, then collapsed in agony
to the mat, grasping her ankle. She was helped off, to thunderous applause from the home crowd. Károlyi carried her
onto the podium to join her team for the medal ceremony, after which she was treated at a hospital for two torn ligaments
in the ankle. Due to her injury, she was unable to compete in the individual all-around competition and event finals, despite
having qualified for both.
Strug became a national sports hero for her courageous finish, visiting President Bill Clinton, appearing at various
television talk shows, making the cover of Sports Illustrated and appearing on a Wheaties cereal box with other
team members. ESPN's "This is SportsCenter" ad campaign poked good-natured fun at her injury with two ads featuring various
ESPN workers carrying her around.
Following the media uproar over Kerri's fight to win the team gold, there was controversy concerning her need to have
vaulted a second time. According to the final team results, the U.S. could still have won the team gold if Kerri had not vaulted.
Unfortunately, the Russians still had one performance left (Rozalia Galiyeva), but
Kerri decided to vault in an effort to clinch the gold for the U.S. team.
What could have been for Strug at the Centennial Olympic Games remains unanswered. Strug qualified first into the floor
event final and likely could have medaled in the event. Had Strug not withdrawn from further competition, her teammate
Dominique Dawes never would have had the opportunity to replace Strug and win
the Olympic bronze on the floor.
Shortly after her feat, Strug participated in the Ice Capades and Disney's World On Ice, then announced her retirement
and enrolled in UCLA where she was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. As a professional, she could not compete in
NCAA gymnastics events, so she worked for a time as team manager instead, a behind-the-scenes role. She later transferred
to Stanford University.
For more information, visit her
profile page on the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique website.
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