How did Chellsie Memmel, age 32, do in U.S. gymnastics championships?
More than 12 years after Chellsie Memmel stood on the silver medal podium at the Olympics, she turned in another memorable performance last weekend, competing at the U.S. championships in front of her own cheering children.
Memmel, a three-time world champion during her teens, has grabbed the spotlight in the gymnastics world with a comeback attempt at age 32, promoting her campaign with the hashtag #adultgymnastics.
This time around, her fans include her husband and their two children, ages 3 and 6, sporting T-shirts reading, “Chell, yeah!” Her father, Andy, is on the floor with her as her coach.
At last month’s U.S. Classic, Memmel competed in vault and beam, and her performance was strong enough that her petition was approved to compete in nationals, Saturday and Sunday in Fort Worth.
At nationals, her Day 1 was mixed. She tied for fifth on vault and sixth on balance beam, but on the uneven bars, she missed a handstand element and dropped to the floor, finishing last in the field in that event. As planned, she did not compete in floor exercise.
On Day 2, Sunday, she put her hand to the mat when she landed her vault, and she fell off the beam. On bars, she fell on her opening release move; she declined to retry that move when she resumed the routine — and then missed the same handstand element as she had on Day 1. Her final two-day score for the three events was 69.3.
After the competition, she tweeted: “It has been too much fun to stop now, and I will not be done because of a bad night.”
In an article last month in the New York Times, Memmel said her “adventure” was launched in March 2020, when, while working in her parents’ gym in Wisconsin, she got the urge to try a double layout flip. To her surprise she landed it easily. That opened the door to a year of self-reinvention that has shaped the conversation about injuries and burnout among elite gymnasts, most of whom are under 21.
In claiming her seventh U.S. title on Sunday, Simone Biles, 24, posted a score of 119.65. She is a virtual lock for the Olympic squad, which will be decided at the national trials June 24-27.
Among the other favorites are Sunisa Lee, 18; Jordan Chiles, 20; and Jade Carey, 21. Since 2000, the minimum age for an Olympic gymnast has been 16.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the U.S. Olympics gymnastics squad for Tokyo will have five members. There will be four members of the designated team, plus two “individual” gymnasts whose scores will not count toward the team competition. Because Jade Carey has already qualified as an individual Olympian, she may elect not to compete at trials for a team spot.