Chellsie Memmel
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Gymnastics | ||
| World Championships | ||
 |
2003 Anaheim | Team competition |
|
2003 Anaheim | Uneven bars |
|
2005 Melbourne | All-around |
 |
2006 Aarhus | Team competition |
|
2005 Melbourne | Uneven bars |
|
2005 Melbourne | Balance beam |
Chellsie Marie Memmel (born June 23, 1988 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is a U.S. gymnast. She started gymnastics as a young child because her parents were both gymnastics coaches and she grew up playing in the gym. She began competing as an elite in 2000.
Major Achievements
6 time National Team Member
Chellsie has two skills named after her: a double turn with leg fully extended in a "Y" on floor and a piked barani on beam. Chellsie is also the third woman in the world to complete a Dos Santos, an Arabian double front in the piked position. Chellsie became the third American woman in gymnastics (after Kim Zmeskal and Shannon Miller) to become the World Champion in the All-Around competition. Shawn Johnson has since repeated this in 2007.
Career
Before 2003
Chellsie Memmel began gymnastics as soon as she could walk. Both of her parents were gymnastics coaches and they encouraged her to play around in the gym and taught her basic gymnastics. When she was 8 years old they realized she would be better off working with a coach who had more expertise so they had her work with Jim Chudy of Salto Gymnastics.
2003
2003 was Chellsie's first year as a Senior International Elite gymnast. She had a strong year, placing third at the National Podium Meet and American Classic. She was invited to compete at the Pacific Challenge, a tri-meet with Canada and Australia. Here she put in a very strong performance, placing first in the all-around. At 2003 U.S. Nationals, Chellsie was coming off of a hamstring injury which had limited her training time. As a result, she had some mistakes on floor and placed tenth all around. At the Worlds Selection Camp several weeks later, Chellsie was selected to the Pan-American Games team, but not the all important World Championships team. Although some considered her capable of being the top all-around gymnast in the world, most had written her off. Suddenly, everything changed in the blink of an eye and Chellsie's career hit the world stage like few others ever have.
Chellsie had an excellent meet at Pan-Ams, winning the all-around and uneven bars - as well as winning a total of 5 medals. Meanwhile, the U.S. Worlds team was struggling with illness and injuries. Although Chellsie was not even one of the two alternates named to the team, Marta Karolyi, the National Team Coordinator, realized Chellsie had now recovered from her injury and was truly one of the top gymnasts in the world. Marta quickly selected her to replace Ashley Postell on the Worlds team, and Chellsie flew from the Pan American Games straight to the World Championships where few expected her to do what she did.
Not selected as one of the two alternates to the team, Chellsie was the third alternate so few in the international scene expected much from her. (Samantha Sheehan and Terin Humphrey were selected as the original two alternates). Chellsie led the entire American team in the team preliminaries, finishing second in the world as an individual and qualifying first among all Americans to the All-Around competition. In the team finals, Chellsie anchored the U.S. team and was the only American selected to compete in every event. Due in large part to Memmel's clutch performances, the U.S. ended up winning its first gold medal ever at the World Championships. And all this despite the fact that they did not field a full team. They competed with only 5 gymnasts in the team finals instead of 6.
On the day of team finals, Chellsie accumulated the highest all-around score in the world and was now considered a favorite for All-Around gold. During the All-Around final, however, it appeared that the fatigue of competing so many times in such a short time span began to set in. Chellsie was not as sharp as usual on the balance beam, and on that event and the bars, her scores were uncharacteristically low. Some attribute part of that to the fact that the judges were beginning to notice Chellsie's form breaks. Others are quick to point out that Russian head coach Leonid Arkayev played a role in influencing the judges with his outright complaints about her scores and a demand for a score change. Chellsie got her moment to shine, however, when she soon thereafter became the World Champion on the uneven bars, where she tied with teammate Hollie Vise.
2004
2004 was a difficult year for Chellsie. She competed at the American Cup and won 3rd place behind Carly Patterson and Courtney McCool. At this time, she was considered a lock for the Olympic Team, along with Carly Patterson. However during a training camp in April, she broke the metatarsal in her foot while training a piked barani on beam. Chellsie was unable to compete at Nationals or at the Olympic Trials. She was able to rehabilitate fast enough to petition for the Olympics Selection camp, but she was not able to compete to the best of her abilities. The head of the Olympic selection committee, Marta Karolyi, told Chellsie not to train floor exercise or vault, but rather to focus on bars and balance beam, her stronger events. Chellsie did as she was told, but she was left as one of three alternates for the 2004 Olympic Team, along with Tasha Schwikert and Allyse Ishino. Tim Dagget, a commentator for NBC, said publicly, that if Chellsie had not been injured, she would have been a major participant in the games, perhaps helping the U.S. to team gold.
After the Games, Chellsie began a remarkable comeback by winning the uneven bars at the 2004 World Cup Final.
2005
In 2005, Chellsie became the World All-Around Champion, the #1 ranked gymnast in the world. Starting off the year, Chellsie competed at the American Cup, which did not have an All-Around competition this year. She placed first on bars and third on beam. She was 4th all-around at the U.S. Classic and 2nd all-around at U.S. Nationals behind Nastia Liukin. For the third year in a row, Chellsie competed at the Pan-American Games. Here she took the all-around title for a second time, as well as capturing individual golds on beam and bars.
She made the 2005 World Championship Team along with teammates Anastasia "Nastia" Liukin, Alicia Sacramone, and Jana Bieger. Many anticipated a close competition between Chellsie and teammate Nastia Liukin. At Worlds, Chellsie won the all-around title by 0.001 over Liukin, not the smallest margin-as two gymnasts in previous years had tied for the title, but certainly the smallest margin separating gold and silver. She became the first American woman to win an all-around gold medal at Worlds since 1994 in Brisbane when Shannon Miller won her second straight title. Her world All-Around title makes Chellsie only the third American woman to ever win the title (Kim Zmeskal won the title in 1991 in Indianapolis). Chellsie also took home silver medals on beam and bars behind teammate Liukin, leaving her World Championship medal total at five.
After her success at the 2005 Worlds, Chellsie decided to go pro and give up her eligibility to compete in college as an NCAA athlete. She has announced that she plans to continue competing as an elite through to 2006 and after that, she will evaluate the merits of continuing to compete as an elite on a year by year basis.
2006
As the gymnast the whole world was watching, Memmel began the year more slowly than she would have liked after having surgery. Although she was not in peak form, she competed in the Pacific Alliance Championships where she tied for the highest score in the All-Around with her biggest rival, Nastia Liukin. Once again, the top two gymnasts in the world were neck and neck.
Chellsie injured her shoulder while training an overshoot while competing at PAC. She opted to not compete at Classics in 2006 to protect her shoulder but was well enough to compete watered down routines at Nationals two weeks later. Chellsie placed fourth at Nationals, largely because her injuries prevented her from competing at full difficulty (however she had two hit bar routines despite not having practiced a full routine until a week before the competition).
At the 2006 World Championships, the U.S. team's health was called into question with Memmel still nursing her injured shoulder and injuring her ankle in training, Liukin severely sprained her ankle forcing her to compete on bars only, and Sacramone and Kelley also overcoming injuries of their own. Nonetheless, the U.S. team shined in the qualification round, with Chellsie anchoring the team with solid scores and a competitive spirit. Chellsie qualified first for the all around finals and also qualified to the uneven bars and floor event finals as well. Although the U.S. team qualified first and was favored to win, they had too many costly mistakes in a competition format where every routine counts. Jana Bieger sat down her vault during the first rotation, and Chellsie fell on her Hindorf release move on bars in the second rotation. Liukin struggled on her bar dismount. Chellsie was visibly disheartened by her uncharacteristic mistake but was able to save herself from falling off beam when she landed a front tuck with one foot completely off the beam. She was able to turn around an excellent floor routine that showed off aggressive style. However the Chinese team had counted no major errors and proved to be victorious over the United States team.
Chellsie's fall from the uneven bars reaggravated her shoulder injury from earlier in the year, and Chellsie was left with a tear in her shoulder. Nevertheless, she remakrably competed in the next two rotations for the team. Chellsie then withdrew from the All Around competition where she had been favored to defend her All Around title from the year before, and the event finals. Her American teammate, Ashley Priess, took her place in the All Around and placed in the top ten. Natasha Kelley took Chellsie's spot on floor event finals and Jana Bieger replaced Chellsie in the bars finals.
2007
By August, 2007 when Nationals rolled around, Chellsie was still recovering from her shoulder injury. She was able to compete on floor exercise at the first day of the U.S. Championships.
After the success of the 2007 World Team in Stuttgart Chellsie decided to make her AA comeback at the Good Luck in Beijing International Invitational which is a test meet for the Olympic Games. The gymnasts competed in the same arena and on the same aparatuses that will be used at the Olympics. Chellsie was fifth in the all around and third on beam and on beam, where she showcased new skills including a front ariel to prone mount. Her Bars routine, normally her highest scoring event was watered down and she did not qualify to event finals. Following the Beijing Test Event Chellsie traveled to the Toyota Cup in Toyota City Japan where she won Toyota the gold medal on floor exercise and the silver on balance beam. After her first AA competition in a year, Chellsie said "I'm not all the way back yet -- my floor was basically the same, but there are a few more things I want to add.... For the routines that I did, I'd say I was competing at about 80 percent. But in the gym, I'm at 90. My shoulder is good. My ankle is healed."
Signature Skills
Signature Skills
Chellsie's gymnastic routines have changed from year to year based on changes in the gymnastic Code of Points and her own needs as an athlete. However she is best known for several unusual skills that very few gymnasts do, these are her special signature skills.
Uneven Bars: Hindorf to Pak transition, Stalder Shapshonikova (in a few rare competitions she will connect the stalder shapshonikova to her pak release), Luo (jam to handstand) to a double front dismount
Floor Exercise multiple whips to a double Arabian, double turn with leg extended in the "Y' position
Balance Beam: Piked Barani-"The Memmel", Standing Arabian, Illusion turn
These were the skills Chellsie performed at 2005 Worlds:
Vault: Yurchenko double twist (Start Value 9.8)
Uneven Bars: jump to outside the high bar, kip, cast to handstand, Hindorff, Pak, kip, cast to handstand stalder Shaposhnikova, overshoot to handstand, toe shoot to high bar; kip, cast to handstand, giant 1/2, Luo (jam dislocate to handstand), double front dismount (Start value 10.0)
Balance Beam: press to split planche; piked barani; Popa (full twisting split jump); switch leap, wolf full; standing Arabian, front aerial; punch front, flip flop, layout stepout; switch side leap roundoff, double pike dismount (Start Value 10.0 with an additional 0.1 in bonus)
Floor Exercise roundoff, whip, whip, flip flop, double Arabian; roundoff, flip flop, double layout; double turn in Y (named the Memmel); switch leap, gogegan (full twisting tour jete); roundoff, flip flop, piked full-in, Popa, tuck jump 2/1, illusion; roundoff, flip flop, double pike (Start Value 10.0).
Coaches
Both of Chellsie's parents are former gymnasts and coaches, and they co-own M and M gymnastics. When Chellsie began the sport she was coached by her parents, but as she became older they chose to send her to another gym.
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