The Inside Interview: Chellsie Memmel

Chellsie Memmel is at a crossroads. A place a lot of gymnasts reach. The moment where they have to make the decision to push on and continue competing, or let their battered bodies have a permanent rest.

“I think I’d like to,” the 20-year-old hedges of her competition future. “I mean I know I’d like to compete, but we’ll see where I am, what my body [can take].”

Memmel has already persevered through more than her fair share of bruises, breaks and plain old bad luck.

A superstar at the 2003 World Championships—coming in as the second alternate, Memmel ended up leading the world as the top scorer in prelims and earning gold with the team and for herself on bars—she seemed destined for glory at the 2004 Olympics. But a broken foot in spring 2004 kept Memmel off the squad and delayed her Olympic dreams. (Ironically, Memmel, an alternate in Athens, was ready to go by the time the Games began, mere weeks too late.)

Memmel set the stage for ’08 with a stunning World all-around win in 2005-becoming only the third American woman to ever claim that title.

A series of injuries, most notably a tear in her right shoulder, hampered her in 2006 (she was forced to withdraw after team competition at Worlds) and then almost completely sidelined Memmel in 2007. She did manage to compete at the Beijing Test Event late in the year, before injuries once again took her out.

After nearly two years outside the spotlight, many wrote Memmel off.

But not so fast. In June of last year, Memmel surprised everyone by finishing third to top guns Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin at the U.S. National Championships.

“It’s OK to call it a comeback,” Memmel joked at the time. “I know what people were saying, but I worked really hard to get back to where I am. We had a training plan and I followed it. I don’t really listen to negative [opinions].”

Memmel continued her dominance throughout the Trials process and the buzz was that Memmel could challenge Johnson and Liukin for an all-around spot in Beijing.

But two days after the team arrived in China, at just their second practice, Memmel tumbled into more bad luck, breaking her ankle—a fact she kept quiet until after the Games.

This week, Memmel discussed her devastating Olympic injury, what the future holds for her and more, exclusively with Inside Gymnastics …

INSIDE: After the Games, you had to have yet another surgery—your third in four years. How are you doing and where are you in your recovery now?

MEMMEL: I’ve been doing good. I’m doing rehab and basic gymnastics, now.

They put a screw in to help it heal and it really helped. [The screw is] a permanent thing; it’s in there forever.

INSIDE: Tell us about how you hurt your ankle. There you were in China, right before the Games. Did it feel like, ‘Oh no, not again?’

MEMMEL: (laughing) Yeah, I’ve had bad timing with injuries.

It was devastating. That’s all I can say. It. Was. Devastating.

I was in the best shape, really, that I had ever been in. I was hitting my routines. Everything was great. To have an injury like that was very hard for me.

The ‘good luck,’ if you want to call it that, was I was still able to compete. It wasn’t what I wanted—I wanted to help the team by competing all-around—but I was very fortunate I was able to compete bars and do at least that part.