Shannon Miller

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Shannon Miller
Shannon Miller autographs a picture for a child at the Youth Activities Center at Naval Station Mayport.
Personal information
Full name:	Shannon Lee Miller
Country Represented:	United States
Date of birth:	March 10, 1977 (1977-03-10) (age 31)
Place of birth:	Rolla, Missouri
Hometown:	Edmond, Oklahoma
Discipline:	Women's artistic gymnastics
Level:	Senior international
Club:	Dynamo
Former coach(es):	Steve Nunno, Peggy Liddick
Retired:	2000

Medal record
Artistic Gymnastics
Olympic Games
Gold	1996 Atlanta	Team
Gold	1996 Atlanta	Balance beam
Silver	1992 Barcelona	All-around
Silver	1992 Barcelona	Balance beam
Bronze	1992 Barcelona	Team
Bronze	1992 Barcelona	Uneven bars
Bronze	1992 Barcelona	Floor exercise
World Championships
Gold	1993 Birmingham	All-around
Gold	1993 Birmingham	Uneven bars
Gold	1993 Birmingham	Floor exercise
Gold	1994 Brisbane	All-around
Gold	1994 Brisbane	Balance beam
Silver	1991 Indianapolis	Team
Silver	1991 Indianapolis	Uneven bars
Silver	1994 Dortmund	Team
Bronze	1995 Sabae	Team
Pan American Games
Gold	Mar del Plata 1995	Team
Gold	Mar del Plata 1995	All-around
Gold	Mar del Plata 1995	Uneven bars
Gold	Mar del Plata 1995	Floor exercise
Silver	Mar del Plata 1995	Vault

Shannon Lee Miller (born March 10, 1977 in Rolla, Missouri, United States) is an artistic gymnast from Edmond, Oklahoma. Miller was the 1993 and 1994 all-around World Champion, the 1996 Olympics balance beam gold medalist, the 1995 Pan Am Games all-around champion, and a member of the gold medal-winning Magnificent 7 team at the Atlanta Olympics. The winner of a combined total of 16 World Championships and Olympic medals between 1991 and 1996, Miller ranks as the most decorated gymnast, male or female, in U.S. history. Miller was also the most successful American athlete, by medal count, at the 1992 Barcelona Games, winning 5 altogether.

1 Gymnastics career
2 Post-1996
- 2.1 Major medals
- 2.2 Current activities
3 Education
- 3.1 Personal life
- 3.2 Professional
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Gymnastics career

[edit] Early years

Miller was born in Rolla, Missouri, but she and her family moved to Edmond, Oklahoma when she was only six months old. Miller began gymnastics at age five, and four years later, she and her mother traveled to Moscow, Russia to participate in a gymnastics camp. The Soviet coaches were astounded by her talent and believed that she had the potential to be a world-class elite gymnast. She also met Oklahoma-based coach Steve Nunno in Russia, and began training with him upon returning home.

Miller made remarkable progress under Nunno’s tutelage. As a 12-year-old, she finished an impressive third at the 1989 Olympic Festival — a competition designed to showcase up-and-coming talent. Over the next two years, she added such difficulty to her routines that she soon had some of the hardest routines in the world. Yet, no matter what she achieved, she always seemed to fall short of fellow American, Kim Zmeskal. Miller traveled to Europe in 1990 and 1991 for international meets and scored two perfect 10.0s on the balance beam at the Swiss Cup and Arthur Gander Memorial. At the 1991 Arthur Gander, she not only won the All-Around, she amassed the highest all-around total ever recorded by an American woman under the traditional 10.0 scale: a 39.875. (Kim Zmeskal had also amassed this same total score at the 1990 USA vs. USSR Challenge).

[edit] 1991

At her first World Championships in 1991 in Indianapolis, Miller won two silver medals - in the uneven bars (where she tied Soviet Tatiana Gutsu) and the team competition. The team medal was a first for the Americans, and teammate Zmeskal became the first American to achieve the World All-Around gold medal. Miller placed second in the world during the compulsory portion of the competition to Soviet Svetlana Boguinskaya. In doing so, and in becoming the first American to qualify to all possible event finals at the World Championships, she also showed that while inconsistent at home in the United States, she was among the top gymnasts in the world when she competed in major international competitions. Throughout her career, the trend continued and Miller seemed to shine when the lights were brightest.

In the following months, Miller established herself as a constant rival to National and World Champion Zmeskal.

[edit] 1992

At the 1992 American Cup, Miller had the chance to finally defeat Zmeskal, but she fell during her final routine on the floor exercise when she was performing her mount of whipback through to full twisting double back. Then, disaster struck a few months before the Olympics when she broke and dislocated her elbow in the spring of 1992. It appeared her Olympics were over. Miller missed the 1992 Individual Apparatus World Championships in Paris, where she had a fantastic shot at winning both the uneven bars and the balance beam. The two titles went to Lavinia Miloşovici and Kim Zmeskal, respectively.

Miller surprised doctors, coaches, and fans alike by competing in the compulsory portion of the 1992 Nationals, where she defeated Zmeskal. Not quite back up to speed with her more difficult manuveurs, she pulled out of the Optionals and petitioned to the Olympic Trials. It was here that her career catapulted itself to the top. Although the result was controversial, Miller won the Olympic Trials and defeated Zmeskal, who was considered the favorite to win the Olympics.

Although Zmeskal remained the favorite, the 1992 Olympics finally arrived. For better or for worse, the outcome of the Games has forever seemed to define both Miller and Zmeskal's careers in the public eye. Miller won the compulsory portion of the Olympic Games, and then won the entire individual portion of the team competition, advancing to the All-Around as the number one ranked gymnast in the World.

Miller is probably best remembered for her performance in the Individual All-around at the 1992 Olympic Games. In a dramatic duel with the Unified Team’s Tatiana Gutsu, Miller missed out on the gold by the closest margin in Olympic history—12 1/1000th of a point. The result was controversial because Gutsu had originally finished 4th on her team. Though she had qualified well within the top 36 who advance to the all-around, only three athletes from each country could then advance. In order to get round this rule, Gutsu's teammate Rozalia Galiyeva, who finished 3rd, was said to have a knee injury and was removed by the Unified Team coaches from the All-Around final. Galieva later said she was not injured, so perhaps Miller was unlucky to have had to compete against Gutsu in the first place. Nevertheless, she performed very strongly on all four events and by the end of the evening had accomplished the highest All-Around placement by an American in a non-boycotted Olympics. This record would stand until Carly Patterson won the title in 2004. She is perhaps best remembered for her superb full twisting Yurchenko vault that, many experts feel, should have received a perfect score of 10.0 instead of the 9.975 that she was awarded. During NBC's broadcast of the event finals, fellow American Tim Daggett described Shannon's vault as "the most perfect piece of gymnastics that I have ever seen". However her routines on the other apparatus were not quite as strong, and a couple of little bobbles on beam and floor cost Shannon gold.

Miller continued her strong showing in event finals, when she went on to capture three more individual medals: a silver on balance beam and bronzes on floor and bars. This haul of five Olympic medals in one Games was more than that of any Americans in any sport. Along with Lavinia Milosovici, Miller was the only female gymnast to compete in every single event at the Games (team, all-around, all four finals) and she alone performed all sixteen routines without serious error. Thirteen of her sixteen routines scored a 9.9 or higher, with her lowest score being a 9.837 on the vault in the apparatus finals. Few other gymnasts have accomplished such a remarkable feat.

[edit] 1993 and 1994

Miller dominated world competition for the next two years, becoming the first and only American back-to-back World All-Around Champion in 1993 and 1994 (It should be noted that her consecutive wins occurred when the World Championships changed its format to an annual event. Prior to 1991, the World Championships were only held every other year. In addition, her two All-Around wins were won without having to compete in a team championships. The events she won at were competitions where only individual events were competed. Further, Shannon is the only female two-time World Champion who did not have to compete in a team competition in the years she won.). In fact, for the two years following the Games, she went completely undefeated world-wide.

Her performance at the 1993 world championships in Birmingham was exceptionally dominant. After having easily qualified in first place on every event in the preliminary round, Miller was somewhat underpar on beam in the all-around final but was still able to narrowly beat Gina Gogean of Romania, by an even smaller margin than she herself had lost by to Gutsu. However, this close result did not quite reflect Miller's utter dominance at the time. Following the break-up of the USSR, the athletes from the old Soviet Union had undergone huge upheaval and most were not ready to mount a sustained challenge at the 1993 worlds. Miller, on the other hand, was exceptionally well prepared, with her routines effectively reworked in order to comply better with the new code. The result in the preliminary round where she won by over two tenths (then a large margin) is very telling. She followed her all-around title with golds on bars and floor, but fell three times from the beam. Miller's performance in apparatus finals was made even more impressive by the fact that she was suffering from a stomach bug. Indeed, it was this that forced her to withdraw from vault.

At the 1994 world championships in Brisbane, Miller again took the all-around title. She beat another Romanian into second place, Lavinia Milosovici, and once again there was an ex-Soviet in third. As in 1993 her performance was not perfect- this time there were errors on floor- but it was still strong enough for the gold. She also won the title that had eluded her the previous year, the beam, with a near perfect exercise. Many feel as though Miller's balance beam performance in the apparatus finals at the 1994 world championships was the best beam routine of her career.

This winning streak was unprecedented and improbable. In a sport where the tiniest mistake proved critical, Miller was continuing to win each and every time out. It was not until the Goodwill Games in late 1994 that her winning streak ended. Dina Kotchetkova, beaten into third place at the world championships, took her competitive revenge by narrowly defeating Shannon Miller 39.325 to 39.268. Miller rebounded very impressively by earning silver medals on the vault and the uneven bars, and gold medals on the balance beam and floor exercise. She narrowly missed winning medals in the women's team competition and the mixed team competition, where she, along with her teammates, placed 4th in both categories. Two weeks later, she would compete at the 1994 U.S. National Championships, were she would win all five silver medals, each time placing second to a very strong Dominique Dawes.

[edit] 1995

In 1993, it had all seemed too easy for Miller. Olympian and television commentator Kathy Johnson commented at the 1993 World Championships, where Miller won every single event in preliminaries, that never had she seen a gymnast so dominant since Nadia Comaneci in 1976. Bart Conner concurred, stating that only if Miller faltered could she be beaten. In 1994, however, Miller placed second to Dominique Dawes in the all-around competition at the US National Championships. Dawes also topped Miller in all four of the individual event finals at the same competition and would be Miller's chief rival for the remainder of that year. In 1995 Miller struggled with injuries, fatigue, and a growth spurt. Although she won the 1995 American Classic, she lost the 1995 National Championships to thirteen year-old Dominique Moceanu when she fell off the beam. Coming into the 1995 World Championships, she had a realistic shot of becoming the reigning three-time consecutive World Champion, but disaster struck when Miller injured her ankle. Although she competed in the team competition and qualified to all four event finals once again, she could barely walk and was not up to speed. Despite performing under par, she still amassed the highest total of the entire American team. Although she had won five individual gold medals in the last two World Championships, she walked away from Sabae without a single individual medal. Here she would take seventh place on the uneven bars, and a very respectable fourth place on the balance beam, after having to withdraw from both the vault and the floor exercise due to her injury.

[edit] 1996

Although struggling with severe tendinitis in her left wrist, Miller won the 1996 National Championships and once again established herself as the top American entering the Olympics. Here she unvailed her new Yurchenko 1 1/2 twisting vault, and her double layout on the floor exercise. Many feel as though Shannon's performance on the floor at these nationals championships was her finest floor routine ever. Once again though, she was forced to sit out the Individual Apparatus World Championship in the Olympic year due to injury, and later the Olympic trials. Still, thanks to her superb performance at the US Nationals, she was able to petition onto the American team as the top performer, and the injury was sufficiently recovered by July to allow Miller to compete in her second Olympics. Her fellow teammates were Dominique Dawes, Jaycie Phelps, Amy Chow, Dominique Moceanu, Kerri Strug and Amanda Borden, and they entered the Olympics hotly tipped for success.

In an epic team competition Miller led the American team to history as the Magnificent 7—the 1996 Olympic Gold medal winning American team - finally defeated the Russians for the first time ever. Kerri Strug garnered the lion's share of the media attention following her famous vault, but actually it was Miller who was the team's highest scorer, individually placing 2nd during the compulsories and 2nd after the entire team competition behind the eventual Olympic All-Around Champion, Lilia Podkopayeva. This performance qualified her for her second Olympic all-around competition.

In the All-Around, Miller was sitting in 2nd place half-way through the competition with another showdown for the gold on the horizon. But her wrist was in poor shape and had only gotten worse since the Nationals, forcing her to have 2 cortisone injections. While numbing the pain, the injections failed to solve the problem and Miller was not at her most powerful. She failed to fully complete a new skill on the floor exercise, a double layout somersault, that needed a big lunge forward. Although she and her coach considered a different opening pass, she had not been able to practice her traditional opening run of a whipback through to a full twisting double pike as a hamstring injury had made it difficult for her to pike. Obviously disappointed, and in tears, she finished the night with a superb performance on the vault. Miller left the All-Around despondent, but still managed a very respectable 8th place finish, making her the highest ranking female gymnast of the 96 Games. She crashed badly in the vault apparatus finals, another event in which she wasn't at her best, and as the final day of Olympic gymnastics arrived, Miller had only one more shot for individual Olympic gold.

With what was without a doubt one of the best performances of her career, Miller finally won the elusive individual Olympic gold medal on beam. This magnificent performance was her thirtieth and final routine in Olympic competition. She once again made history by becoming the first American to win the balance beam at the Olympics. In doing so, she also became the first American woman to win an individual gold medal at a non-boycotted Olympics, and the first American woman to win any individual apparatus in a non-boycotted Olympics. This historic result also makes Shannon the only female American gymnast to have won individual gold medals at both the Olympics and the World Championships. (Only two male American gymnasts, Bart Conner and Paul Hamm, share this honor). Miller concluded her career with an astounding 7 Olympic medals.

[edit] Post-1996

Following the Olympics, Miller and her teammates participated in a 100-city tour and several exhibition competitions. She competed in her final world-class meet in 1997, when she won the all-around title at that year's World University Games. In 2000 Miller made a brief comeback attempt for the Sydney Olympics. She competed in the Olympic Trials, but did not complete the meet due to a knee injury, and was not selected for the team.

Miller's accomplishments in the sport of gymnastics have won her several major honors. She has been named to USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame, the USA Olympic Hall of Fame, and the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

[edit] Major medals

1991 Worlds: Bars silver, team silver
1992 Olympics: All-Around silver, beam silver, floor bronze, bars bronze, team bronze
1993 Worlds: All-Around gold, bars gold, floor gold
1994 Worlds: All-Around gold, beam gold
1994 Team Worlds: Team silver
1995 Worlds: Team bronze
1996 Olympics: Beam gold, team gold

[edit] Current activities

[edit] Education

As a teenager, Miller attended Edmond North High School, working with a flexible program that accommodated her training, travel and competition schedule.^[1]

In the Spring of 2003, Miller graduated from the University of Houston with a B.B.A. in Marketing and Entrepreneurship.^[2] In the Fall of 2003, she entered Boston College Law School ^[3] and graduated in 2007.

[edit] Personal life

Miller married eye surgeon Christopher Phillips in June 1999, in a wedding that included several of her Mag 7 teammates and nearly 1000 guests. The couple separated in 2004; their divorce was finalized in 2006 after bitter court arguments. While Phillips accused Miller of infidelity with a male athlete, the charge was denied by Miller and did not figure into the divorce grounds.^[4]^[5]

In August 2007, Miller announced her engagement to John Falconetti, the 39-year-old President of Drummond Press and chairman of the Duval County, Florida Republican executive committee.^[6]

[edit] Professional

Miller is co-host and color commentator of her own show, Gymnastics 360 with Shannon Miller, on CN8, The Comcast Network. The show airs on alternating Sunday nights and highlights both men's and women's elite and international competitions. Miller's co-host is Lou Tilley.^[7] Miller recently founded the Shannon Miller Foundation dedicated to fighting childhood obesity. She has also been named co-chair of the Governor's Fitness Council for the State of Florida.

In November 2006, Miller ran the New York City Marathon in 4:17:33.^[8] In early 2007, Miller, along with fellow gymnasts Bart Conner and Nadia Comaneci, appeared on the January 26, 2007 episode of 1 vs. 100 on NBC. Miller also co-founded the summer sports camp, Summer Gold, in Crosby, Texas, with Olympian Peter Kormann in the summer of 2007.