Shannon Miller

 

Medal record
Competitor for  United States
Artistic Gymnastics
World Championships
Silver	1991 Indianapolis	Team
Silver	1991 Indianapolis	Uneven bars
Gold	1993 Birmingham	All-around
Gold	1993 Birmingham	Uneven bars
Gold	1993 Birmingham	Floor exercise
Silver	1994 Dortmund	Team
Gold	1994 Brisbane	All-around
Gold	1994 Brisbane	Balance beam
Bronze	1995 Sabae	Team
Olympic Games
Bronze	1992 Barcelona	Team
Silver	1992 Barcelona	All-around
Bronze	1992 Barcelona	Uneven bars
Silver	1992 Barcelona	Balance beam
Bronze	1992 Barcelona	Floor exercise
Gold	1996 Atlanta	Team
Gold	1996 Atlanta	Balance beam
Pan American Games
Gold	Mar del Plata 1995	Team
Gold	Mar del Plata 1995	All-around
Gold	Mar del Plata 1995	Uneven bars
Gold	Mar del Plata 1995	Floor exercise
Silver	Mar del Plata 1995	Vault

Shannon Lee Miller (b. March 10, 1977 in Rolla, Missouri) is an artistic gymnast from Edmond, Oklahoma. She has earned 7 Olympic Medals and 9 World Championship Medals since her Elite International debut in 1990. She is the most decorated gymnast, male or female, in U.S. history. She was also the most successful athlete, in medals, at the 1992 Barcelona Games, winning 5 altogether.

Gymnastics career

Early years

Shannon was born in Rolla, Missouri, but she and her family moved to Edmond, Oklahoma when Shannon was only six months old. Shannon began gymnastics at age five, and four years later, she and her mom traveled to Moscow, Russia to participate in a gymnastics camp. The Soviet coaches were astounded by her talent and believed that she had the potential to be a world-class elite gymnast. Shannon also met Oklahoma-based coach Steve Nunno in Russia, and began training with him upon returning home.

Shannon made remarkable progress under Nunno’s tutelage. As a 12-year-old, she finished an impressive third at the 1989 Olympic Festival — a competition designed to showcase up-and-coming talent. Over the next two years, she added such difficulty to her routines that she soon had some of the hardest routines in the world. Yet, no matter what she achieved, she always seemed to fall short of fellow American, Kim Zmeskal. Shannon traveled to Europe in 1990 and 1991 for international meets and scored two perfect 10.0s on the balance beam at the Swiss Cup and Arthur Gander Memorial. At the 1991 Arthur Gander, she not only won the All-Around, she amassed the highest all-around total ever recorded by an American woman under the traditional 10.0 scale: a 39.875.

1991

At her first World Championships in 1991 in Indianapolis, Shannon won two silver medals - in the uneven bars (where she tied Soviet Tatiana Gutsu) and the team competition. The team medal was a first for the Americans, and teammate Zmeskal became the first American to achieve the World All-Around gold medal. Miller placed second in the world during the compulsory portion of the competition to Soviet Svetlana Boguinskaya. In doing so, and in becoming the first American to qualify to all possible event finals at the World Championships, she also showed that while inconsistent at home in the United States, she was among the top gymnasts in the world when she competed in major international competitions. Throughout her career, the trend continued and Miller seemed to shine when the lights were brightest.

In the following months, Shannon established herself as a constant rival to National and World Champion Zmeskal.

1992

At the 1992 American Cup, Shannon had the chance to finally defeat Zmeskal, but she fell during her final routine. Then, disaster struck a few months before the Olympics when Shannon broke and dislocated her elbow in the spring of 1992. It appeared her Olympics were over. Miller missed the 1992 Individual Apparatus World Championships in Paris, where she had a fantastic shot at winning both the uneven bars and the balance beam. The two titles went to Lavinia Miloşovici and Kim Zmeskal, respectively.

Shannon surprised doctors, coaches, and fans alike by competing in the compulsory portion of the 1992 Nationals, where she defeated Zmeskal. Not quite back up to speed with her more difficult manuveurs, she pulled out of the Optionals and petitioned to the Olympic Trials. It was here that her career catapulted itself to the top. Although the result was controversial, Miller won the Olympic Trials and defeated Zmeskal, who was considered the favorite to win the Olympics.

Although Zmeskal remained the favorite, the 1992 Olympics finally arrived. For better or for worse, the outcome of the Games has forever seemed to define both Miller and Zmeskal's careers in the public eye. Miller won the compulsory portion of the Olympic Games, and then won the entire individual portion of the team competition, advancing to the All-Around as the number one ranked gymnast in the World.

Shannon is probably best remembered for her performance in the Individual All-around at the 1992 Olympic Games. In a dramatic duel with the Unified Team’s Tatiana Gutsu, Shannon missed out on the gold by the closest margin in Olympic history—12 1/1000th of a point. The result was controversial because Gutsu had originally finshed 4th on her team. Though she had qualified well within the top 36 who advance to the all-around, only three athletes from each country could then advance. In order to get round this rule, Gutsu's teammate Rozalia Galiyeva, who finished 3rd, was said to have a knee injury and was removed by the Unified Team coaches from the All-Around final. Galieva later said she was not injured, so perhaps Shannon was unlucky to have had to compete against Gutsu in the first place. Nevertheless, she performed strongly on all four events and by the end of the evening had accomplished the highest All-Around placement by an American in a non-boycotted Olympics. This record would stand until Carly Patterson won the title in 2004. Shannon continued her strong showing in event finals, when she went on to capture three more individual medals: a silver on balance beam and bronzes on floor and bars. This haul of five Olympic medals in one Games was more than that of any Americans in any sport. Along with Lavinia Milosovici, Shannon was the only female gymnast to compete in every single event at the Games (team, all-around, all four finals) and she alone performed all sixteen routines without serious error. Few other gymnasts have accomplished such a feat.

1993 and 1994

Shannon dominated world competition for the next two years, becoming the first and only American back-to-back World All-Around Champion in 1993 and 1994 (It should be noted that her consecutive wins occurred when the World Championships changed its format to an annual event. Prior to 1993, the World Championships were only held every other year). In fact, for the two years following the Games, she went completely undefeated world-wide.

Her performance at the 1993 world championships in Birmingham was exceptionally dominant. After having easily qualified in first place on every event in the preliminary round, Shannon was somewhat underpar on beam in the all-around final but was still able to narrowly beat Gina Gogean of Romania, by an even smaller margin than she herself had lost by to Gutsu. However, this close result did not quite reflect Miller's utter dominance at the time. Following the break-up of the USSR, the athletes from the old Soviet Union had undergone huge upheaval and most were not ready to mount a sustained challenge at the 1993 worlds. Miller, on the other hand, was exceptionally well prepared, with her routines effectively reworked in order to comply better with the new code. The result in the preliminary round where she won by over two tenths (then a large margin) is very telling. She followed her all-around title with golds on bars and floor, but fell three times from the beam. Shannon's performance in apparatus finals was made even more impressive by the fact that she was suffering from a stomach bug. Indeed, it was this that forced her to withdraw from vault.

At the 1994 world championships in Brisbane, Shannon again took the all-around title. She beat another Romanian into second place, Lavinia Milosovici, and once again there was an ex-Soviet in third. As in 1993 her performance was not perfect- this time there were errors on floor- but it was enough for the gold. She also won the title that had eluded her the previous year, the beam.

This winning streak was unprecedented and improbable. In a sport where the tiniest mistake proved critical, Miller was continuing to win each and every time out. It was not until the Goodwill Games in late 1994 that her winning streak ended. Dina Kotchetkova, beaten into third place at the world championships, took her competitive revenge.

1995

In 1993, it had all seemed too easy for Miller. Olympian and television commentator Kathy Johnson commented at the 1993 World Championships, where Shannon won every single event in preliminaries, that never had she seen a gymnast so dominant since Nadia Comaneci in 1976. Bart Conner concurred, stating that only if Miller faltered could she be beaten. In 1994, however, Miller placed second to Dominique Dawes in the all-around competition at the US National Championships. Dawes also topped Miller in all four of the individual event finals at the same competition and would be Miller's chief rival for the remainder of that year. In 1995 Miller struggled with injuries, fatigue, and a growth spurt. Although she won the 1995 American Classic, she lost the 1995 National Championships to thirteen year-old Dominique Moceanu when she fell off the beam. Coming into the 1995 World Championships, she had a realistic shot of becoming the reigning three-time consecutive World Champion, but disaster struck when Miller injured her ankle. Although she competed in the team competition and qualified to all four event finals once again, she could barely walk and was not up to speed. Although she had won five individual gold medals in the last two World Championships, she walked away from Sabae without a single individual medal.

1996

Although struggling with severe tendinitis in her left wrist, Miller won the 1996 National Championships and once again established herself as the top American entering the Olympics. Once again though, she was forced to sit out the Individual Apparatus World Championship in the Olympic year due to injury. Still, she was able to petition onto the American team and the injury was sufficiently recovered by July to allow Shannon to compete in her second Olympics. Her fellow teammates were Dominique Dawes, Jaycie Phelps, Amy Chow, Dominique Moceanu, Kerri Strug and Amanda Borden, and they entered the Olympics hotly tipped for success.

In an epic team competition Miller led the American team to history as the Magnificent 7—the 1996 Olympic Gold medal winning American team - finally defeated the Russians for the first time ever. Kerri Strug garnered the lion's share of the media attention following her famous vault, but actually it was Miller who was the team's highest scorer, individually placing 2nd during the compulsories and 2nd after the entire team competition. This performance qualified her for her second Olympic all-around competition.

In the All-Around, Miller was sitting in 2nd place half-way through the competition with another showdown for the gold on the horizon. But her wrist was in poor shape and had only gotten worse since the Nationals, forcing her to have 2 cortisone injections. While numbing the pain, the injections failed to solve the problem and Miller was not at her most powerful. She failed to fully complete a new skill on the floor exercise. Although she and her coach considered a different opening pass, she had not been able to practice her traditional opening run as a hamstring injury had made it difficult for her to pike. Miller left the All-Around despondent. She crashed badly in the vault apparatus finals, another event in which she wasn't at her best, and as the final day of Olympic gymnastics arrived, Miller had only one more shot for individual Olympic gold.

With perhaps the best performance of her career, Shannon finally won the elusive individual Olympic gold medal on beam. She once again made history by becoming the first American to win the balance beam at the Olympics. In doing so, she also became the first American woman to win an individual gold medal at a non-boycotted Olympics, and the first American woman to win any individual apparatus in an non-boycotted Olympics.

Miller concluded her career with an astounding 7 Olympic medals and sits as one of the most accomplished American athletes in any sport.

Shannon established an unforgettable legacy in American gymnastics. She was the U.S. national gymnastics champion in 1993 and 1996; she has been world champion in every event except the vault, where she has made the finals four times (1991, 1993, 1994, 1995), and an Olympic medalist in every event but the vault, where she was twice an Olympic finalist (1992 and 1996). Due to her accomplishments, she has been named to USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame, the USA Olympic Hall of Fame, and the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Major medals

1991 Worlds: Bars silver, team silver

1992 Olympics: All-Around silver, beam silver, floor bronze, bars bronze, team bronze

1993 Worlds: All-Around gold, bars gold, floor gold

1994 Worlds: All-Around gold, beam gold

1994 Team Worlds: Team silver

1995 Worlds: Team bronze

1996 Olympics: Beam gold, team gold

Post-competition years

Shannon and her teammates went on several post-Olympics tours, drawing sellout crowds for nearly each show. She competed briefly in 1997, but primarily in professional competitions. She made a comeback in 2000 in an attempt to make her third Olympic team but she wasn't selected. She has since dedicated herself to furthering her education. Recently she has spoken out against the controversial new code and the abandonment of the Perfect 10, which has won her much admiration from fans

Education

In the Spring of 2003, Miller graduated from the University of Houston with a B.B.A. in Marketing and Entrepreneurship.^[1] In the Fall of 2003, she entered Boston College to attend law school^[2] and graduated in 2007.

In November 2006, Miller ran the New York City Marathon in 4:17:33.^[3]

Miller, along with fellow gymnasts Bart Conner and Nadia Comaneci, appeared on the January 26, 2007 episode of 1 vs. 100 on NBC.

Miller opened a summer sports camp,"Summer Gold" sports camps in Crosby, Texas, with Olympian Peter Kormann in the summer of 2007.

Divorce, Controversy and Remarriage

Miller married Dr. Chris Phillips in 1999. However, this ended unpleasantly with Miller being accused of adultery with a married athlete and threatening to accuse Phillips of abusing prescription drugs if he refused to meet her financial demands. Miller denied the allegations.

In August 2007, it was announced that Miller will marry John Falconetti, the 39-year-old President of Drummond Press and chairman of the Duval County, Florida Republican executive committee. She was also been named co-chair of the Governor's Fitness Council for the State of Florida.

Professional

Miller is co-host and color commentator of her own show, Gymnastics 360 with Shannon Miller, on CN8, The Comcast Network. The show airs on alternating Sunday nights and highlights both men's and women's Elite and International competitions. Miller's co-host is Lou Tilley.^[4] Shannon recently founded the Shannon Miller Foundation dedicated to fighting childhood obesity.

References

• Athlete Bio: Shannon Miller. United States Olympic Committee (2004).

• Shannon Miller at the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique profile page

• Shannon Miller's official website. Retrieved on 2006-12-25.

• Shannon Miller Olympic Medals and Stats. databaseOlympics.com.

• Quiner, Krista (1996). Shannon Miller: America’s Most Decorated Gymnast. East Hanover, New Jersey: The Bradford Book Company. 

External links

• Jacobs, Adam (November 13, 2006). TFS Interview with Olympic medalist Shannon Miller talks about running 26.2. The Final Sprint. Retrieved on 2007-02-05.

World champions in artistic gymnastics – women's all-around

1934: Vlasta Dakanova     1938: Vlasta Dakanova     1950: Helena Rakoczy     1954: Galina Rud'ko     1958: Larissa Latynina     1962: Larissa Latynina     1966: Věra Čáslavská     1970: Ludmilla Tourischeva     1974: Ludmilla Tourischeva     1978: Elena Mukhina     1979: Nellie Kim     1981: Olga Bicherova     1983: Natalia Yurchenko     1985: Yelena Shushunova, Oksana Omelianchik     1987: Aurelia Dobre     1989: Svetlana Boginskaya     1991: Kim Zmeskal     1993: Shannon Miller     1994: Shannon Miller     1995: Lilia Podkopayeva     1997: Svetlana Khorkina     1999: Maria Olaru     2001: Svetlana Khorkina     2003: Svetlana Khorkina     2005: Chellsie Memmel     2006: Vanessa Ferrari     2007: Shawn Johnson

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