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CHELLSIE MEMMEL
Official website: www.chellsiememmel.net
Chellsie Marie Memmel (born June 23, 1988 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is a U.S. gymnast.
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.
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Chellsie Memmel, 2005 US Nationals
Photograph copyright © Heather Maynez, www.gymnpics.com. All rights reserved. |
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 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 five 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 Károlyi, 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.
Considered the "third alternate" to the team, few in the international scene expected much, but 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 five gymnasts instead of six.
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 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 Károlyi, told Chellsie not to train floor exercise or vault, but rather to focus on bars and balance beam. 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.
After the Games, Chellsie began a remarkable comeback by winning the uneven bars at the 2004 World Cup Final.
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. This time 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 Nastia Liukin,
Alicia Sacramone, and Jana Bieger. At Worlds,
she won the all-around title, becoming 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. She also was accepted as a
student at Marquette University.
Memmel began 2006 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 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 US team's fitness 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 Natasha Kelley also overcoming injuries of their own. Nonetheless the US team shined in the qualification round,
with Chellsie anchoring the team with solid scores and 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 US 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 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. Neverthless, she 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.
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 U.S. Championships, but did not make a full charge to attempt to earn a spot on the World Championship team.
Chellsie remarked she was about 80 percent back on beam, and she was seen performing basic vaults. On bars, she was limited to
mostly giants and full pirouettes. Although Chellsie hit her usual floor routine at Nationals, her score was not very high.
Chellsie reports she is training with 2008 in mind.
For more information, visit her
profile page on the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique website.
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