When Do Olympic Gymnasts Start Training Again
The twelvemonth that old Olympic gymnast Chellsie Memmel became the world all-around champion, many of her electric current competitors were just being built-in.
The 32-year-old mother of two has come out of retirement after nine years to shatter stereotypes in a sport where athletes often peak in their teens, and to prove that she can nevertheless compete at a high level without endless, grueling grooming.
She hopes her journey sends a message to others who may have given up on a dream or think that their time in the spotlight has passed.
"Go for it," she told Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb on TODAY Tuesday. "That'due south been the whole thing for me in this journeying is figuring out what I can do, what I can push myself to do but out of love of doing it.
"And I really think that we more often than not are just the only people holding ourselves dorsum. Information technology'south non somebody else. In that location is attitudes about things or certain expectations that you lot tin't exercise things when yous go to this age, but ultimately I feel like we tend to hold ourselves back because nosotros mind to that, so just go for it."
The Olympic silver medalist competed at the U.S. Classic in Indianapolis this past weekend, marking her beginning contest since retiring in 2012. She scored a 13.750 on the vault and recovered from a slight stumble on the beam for a 11.800.
The performance showed she could all the same challenge gymnasts half her age.
"I've had a couple of days to kind of have it all in, and it still feels a little bit surreal, like I tin can't believe I just competed," she said.
At a encounter where 24-year-old superstar Simone Biles continued to push button the limits of the sport, Memmel showed there doesn't have to be a strict retirement age.
Memmel was part of the U.S. Olympic squad that won the silverish medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and was the world all-around champion in 2005. She had stayed connected to the sport as a judge subsequently her retirement, but decided she wanted to take some other crevice at competing at a high level.
She told TODAY she decided to commencement grooming once more terminal year during the pandemic, documenting the journey on her YouTube channel. Her father, Andy Memmel, a quondam collegiate gymnast who trained her when she was immature, returned to coaching her at the family's gym in W Berlin, Wisconsin.
Initially, she said, it was simply a fashion to stay in shape.
"And so I merely started doing gymnastics more and more than and kind of seeing what my body could practise," she said. "Can I handle it, can I do some of the skills that I used to before, and then it was similar, tin can I push the envelope and acquire some skills? And it just kind of kept happening, and I was continuing to just have so much fun that I kept going."
Her former teammate and current NBC analyst, gold medalist Nastia Liukin, 31, applauded her effort on Twitter by saying Memmel is "inspiring the whole world."
"It's kind of been instilled in us to exist similar, you're gonna height when yous're 16," Liukin said on TODAY Tuesday. "And so now to be able to come across her, and being on the other side of things every bit well, information technology'due south been inspiring to me to see that she has no limits."
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Memmel as well got plenty of help and back up from her husband, Kory, and her children Dashel, half dozen, and Audrielle, 3.
"I feel like everybody was similar, 'You should compete, y'all could compete,' and I was kind of the 1 that was dragging my feet a niggling bit," she said. "It'south a big commitment, and I know how hard information technology is to train and compete but (my dad) was onboard, my family was onboard, my married man, everybody was on lath, and then they were simply kind of waiting for me to be like, 'All right, let'due south do it.'"
She trained 15 hours a calendar week, in dissimilarity to the grueling schedule adhered to past many top gymnasts.
"I just want to put that bulletin out to anybody who idea they missed their chance at something or didn't get a hazard to try it or wanted to become dorsum to their sport even just for fun, no one should be stopping yous," she told NBC Sports after the meet. "Just don't concur yourself dorsum."
Memmel is at present looking forrad to side by side week'due south U.S. Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, followed by the U.S. Olympic trials in St. Louis at the end of June.
While she is a long shot to make the Tokyo Olympics, she said she would've laughed at anyone who told her a twelvemonth ago that it would even be a possibility.
And then does she remember she can authorize?
"Sometimes aye, sometimes no because I know how hard it is to make that team, I know the talent that we accept in this country," she said. "I know how many other proficient gymnasts that there are, so I accept just this swell appreciation for everybody who is preparation, so I know that it volition exist a battle."
Source: https://www.today.com/news/olympic-gymnast-mom-2-chellsie-memmel-return-sport-32-just-t219402
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