In a sport where Simone Biles is considered old at the age of 23, her fellow US gymnast is dreaming of an unlikely return to top-level competition
After the coronavirus pandemic reached national emergency status in March, former Olympic gymnast Chellsie Memmel’s family gym closed its doors. Seeing M&M Gymnastics empty – no aspiring athletes launching themselves into the foam pit, or wobbling on top of the beam – felt wrong to Memmel. “I was like, it’s a gymnastics building,” she says. “It needs gymnastics.”
So Memmel decided to fill the void herself. While helping her parents, Andy and Jeanelle, clean the Wisconsin gym ahead of its eventual reopening, she began to revisit some of the skills that once made her the best in the world. At 17, she won the women’s all-around title at the 2005 World Championships; three years later, she helped the US women’s gymnastics team win silver at the Beijing Olympics. But she turned to coaching and judging after an unsuccessful attempt to make it to the 2012 London Games, and hadn’t trained consistently since.
Related: Could Simone Biles really do the unthinkable and retire before Tokyo 2021?
Tried the pike arabian #ilovegymnastics #gymnastics #adultgymnastics pic.twitter.com/oeEjDvWseP
