Top U.S. Women Gymnasts in the Last Decade
While we’re all still reeling with pride from the outstanding skill and athleticism demonstrated by the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team in this year’s Olympic Games and buzzing with anticipation for more major wins, let’s take a look at a few of the best women gymnasts in recent years…
Nastia Liukin
Nastia Liukin is a retired gymnast and the 2008 Olympic individual all-around champion. She is also the 2005 and 2007 World Champion on the balance beam and the 2005 World Champion on the uneven bars. Liukin is a four-time all-around U.S. National Champion with nine World Championship medals. Liukin’s parents are former champion gymnasts from Russia, and Nastia’s father, Valeri, served as her coach. Liukin is best known for her skills on the uneven bars and balance beam and her style that paired expression with technical precision.
Gabby Douglas
Gabby Douglas is the 2013 Olympic individual all-around champion. She is also the first African American to win the individual all-around event. As part of the “Fierce Five” U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team in 2012, Douglas helped her teammates earn a team gold medal. Douglas is a part of the 2016 U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team, which won a gold medal, and is the third American women’s gymnastics team to do so. Douglas was also a member of the gold-winning American team at the 2011 and the 2015 World Championships. The Associated Press named Douglas Female Athlete of the Year in 2012, and she has continued to amass numerous honors and awards in recent years.
Carly Patterson
Carly Patterson is the 2004 Olympic all-around champion, and the second American woman in history to win an Olympic all-around gold medal. In the 2003 World Championships, Patterson won a silver medal in the all-around and helped lead the US to their first-ever World Championship team gold medal. Retiring with a back injury shortly after the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Patterson has since started a professional singing career. She is known for her signature beam dismount, an Arabian double front which, after the 2003 World Championships was named “The Patterson.”
Jordyn Wieber
Jordyn Wieber was part of the U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, dubbed the Fierce Five. The Fierce Five earned a team gold medal, which was the first gold medal for the American women’s gymnastics team since 1996. Wieber also won the gold medal in the all-around at the 2011 World Championships in Tokyo. She is the first U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team member from Michigan. Since retiring from gymnastics in 2015, Wieber has been working towards a degree in psychology at UCLA.
Simone Biles
Simone Biles is a member of the gold-winning 2016 U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team and is the 2016 Olympic individual all-around champion. Biles is also a three-time world all-around champion, three-time world floor champion, and two-time world balance beam champion. She is the first woman to win three consecutive world all-around titles, and is the most decorated American female gymnast in World Championship history (she arrived at the Rio Olympics as the most decorated gymnast before events had even begun). Biles has won a total of fourteen World Championship medals, which is the most ever won by an American woman. With tremendous execution and routines, Biles has proven to be one of the most talked about athletes in this year’s Olympic Games.
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