by Nancy French
During the commercial break, he took me aside.
“Don’t worry,” he said very kindly. “I’ll help you find your parents.”
Within minutes, an NBC official called my agent and offered to send a driver to bring my parents and her to the studio. It was one of the most compassionate things anyone has ever done for me, and I’ll never forget Costas’s kindness.
As it turns out, my parents had been told after the competition to get on a bus headed back to the Olympic Village. By the time NBC tried to reunite us at its studio, I needed to go to the USA House with the other gymnasts for a reception in our honor. Once we arrived, the other gymnasts went directly into the reception room, while I went to another part of the house to wait for my parents.
Chow was already at the party, and he came over to talk with me. “You gave it your all,” he said. “I wish there was something I could have done.”
We replayed the competition, event by event, score by score.
“What else could I have done?” I asked, but I knew the answer. Eventually, resignation filled the room, and we just sat there in silence. Then, we heard a door open.
Finally, four and a half hours after the all-around competition, my parents were there. Chow jumped up and walked out to give us some privacy. There were no words, only sobbing.
“I love you,” my mom cried. She was less upset over the silver than she was about how little she’d seen me over the past month. From the moment the Olympic Team had been introduced in early July, my parents had been nothing but spectators.
I had gone straight from camp to Beijing, where I was gone for five weeks. Of course, they had been in the stands, but in a very real way my parents had to sit on the outside and watch everything happen to me. They weren’t able to be a part of it. They had to content themselves with watching from afar and smiling for the occasional camera shot.
At night, they’d sometimes get to talk to me on the phone, but those talks were less conversational than they were therapeutic. I called them weekly with another meltdown, when I’d cry into the phone and say things like, “I want to come home” or “I can’t do this anymore” or “so-and-so is not being nice” or “I feel sick.” It had to be terribly painful for them to realize I was going through so much for so long without being able to do one thing about it. Not a single thing.
But finally we were together again. And when I saw their faces, I realized it had been just as hard on them as it had been on me . . . maybe more so. Eight hours’ worth of emotions—actually, thirteen years’ worth—just flowed out. I’d come in second, but they were proud of me.
About fifteen minutes later, Sheryl came into the room. She told us that Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the US Olympic Committee, and Jim Scherr, the USOC’s chief executive officer, wanted to meet us. The two men told me how proud they were of my performance and sportsmanship, saying I could not have represented the United States any better.
A few minutes later, my parents and I joined the reception downstairs. At last I was ready to celebrate. And in a way, though there were more competitions to come, right then I felt as if everything was over.
Lesson I’ve Learned
Your family members are the ones who will give your life joy and meaning. Remember that when you go home at the end of your day, your family will always be there.
Chapter 16
A Truly Winning Balance
Sports is human life in microcosm.
—Howard Cosell
“HEY! I just wanted you to know the whole town supports you, and I can be your bodyguard once you get home.”
I smiled at the text from a friend in Iowa and put the phone on the little table on my balcony. Taylor was outside his room below me, and we were having one of our late-night balcony-to-balcony chats.
“Look at it this way,” Taylor said. “You are one of the top two gymnasts in the entire world! You should be proud!”
By this time I was exhausted from a day filled with intense emotion and disappointment. I was no longer reeling from the day, just fatigued by it.
“I got you something,” he said. A moment later, a Snickers bar landed on my balcony.
“Thanks, Taylor,” I said, picking it up and unwrapping it. It tasted delicious, and this time I didn’t even hide the wrapper.
Before I finally went to sleep that night, my phone buzzed with texts of amazing support, from friends both old and new. My fellow Olympian Steve Lopez texted, “You looked so graceful and beautiful out there! I’m so happy my brothers and I got to witness poetry in motion! You were amazing.”
Then, my phone buzzed with another text that really lifted my spirits. I didn’t know Olympian Michelle Kwan, but she’d gotten my phone number from a mutual friend. She wrote, “Hi, Shawn! I just wanted to say everybody is so proud of you. People love you, not because of the color of your medals but because of your amazing attitude, great spirit, and kicking talent. Keep your head up high and smile. Everyone loves you.”
That last one was particularly meaningful. Michelle is widely considered one of the greatest figure skaters of all time, and she won the silver medal in the 1998 Olympics.
There’s someone who understands how I feel, I thought as I took some Tylenol PM, snuggled into my bed, and turned out the light. Maybe the only one.
I was happy to put this day to rest.
A few days later, an article written about my time in Beijing began by pointing out that while I had been favored to win several gold medals at the Olympics, I still had not earned a single gold. Thanks for the reminder, I thought.
Next up, after the team competition and the individual all-around, I faced the floor exercise finals. For the third time in the past five days, there was a gold medal at stake.
Wearing a midnight-blue leotard with a white ribbon holding back my hair, I was first in the lineup to compete at the National Indoor Stadium. Expectations for me were high since I was the reigning world champion in the floor exercise. I landed my first run perfectly, and the crowd loved it. While I performed, people called out my name in encouragement, and I delivered what the announcers called a very compact and controlled performance. Since I was the first to perform, my 15.5 was the score to beat.
Would it be enough for that much-coveted gold? I watched from the sidelines, pretty content since I knew I’d given it my all.
All the gymnasts did a great job, but I held on to the lead all the way until the end. Then I watched as Romanian Sandra Izbasa started her routine. Since she began with a higher degree of difficulty than anyone else, she could quite possibly take the gold. From the side, I watched her hit every tumbling pass with a solid, unwavering thud. By the time her routine was over, the gold medal had slipped away from me.
Of course, when you’re training your whole life to get to the Olympics, you train for gold. But a silver medal around my neck three times at the Olympics was still pretty impressive. At least that’s what I told the reporters. Honestly, I was disappointed that I hadn’t won a gold medal. I felt like I’d let down many people who’d believed in me.
Strangely, though, I was beginning to feel a little dulled by the whole experience. It had been a long road, and since I’d done my best, I just kept looking ahead. Even the New York Times reported that I seemed “markedly less stunned than she had on Friday after the all-around.”3
Everything seemed different after those eleven seconds on the mat before the all-around. I realized that gymnastics was no longer the most important thing to me, and that I’d essentially already won. I knew that my friends and family loved me, that God was watching over me, and that I had represented my nation well at the Olympics. All in all, I knew that my life was solid and balanced.
On August 25, I had one more chance for gold: the balance beam finals.
I looked in the mirror after putting on my red-and-blue leotard accented with rhinestones. Now I just needed to decide which ribbon to tie into my hair. I found a Beijing ribbon from the award bouquet I’d received the night b
efore. I smiled as I looped it around my ponytail.
This is it, I thought, trying desperately to rev up my competitive nature. I came to win a gold, and I’ve got one more shot.
But during warm-ups in the back gym, my confidence completely disappeared. I could tell I simply wasn’t “on.” When you start training so many years in advance of a big competition like this one, you sometimes wonder how your performance will go, whether it will be tainted by sickness, injury, or other circumstances beyond your control.
Even worse, however, is when nothing is wrong at all . . . when you’re simply not able to pull off a routine you’ve done a million times. At least if you have a broken bone, you have some tangible reason that explains away an imperfect routine. And perfection is what we aim for. In other sports, athletes strive for excellence. In gymnastics, we strive for perfection.
Chow looked at me with concern when he first saw me at the arena. He started encouraging me and even got me into warm-up about forty-five minutes earlier than normal. After some conditioning, I mounted the beam with a springboard to run through the routine, but I immediately started feeling heavy and tired. This, of course, was not a good sign. Neither was the headache that simply would not go away and that got worse when Chow began to yell at me.
“You’re taking too long!”
“Okay,” I said, trying to get into a steadier, faster rhythm. I knew he was right. So I sped up my performance, but doing so threw me off-kilter. I swung my arms up in an effort to steady myself, but the correction was not enough. I fell. Since the beam is only four inches wide, falling might be somewhat understandable . . . if I wasn’t favored to win a gold medal in this competition. As it was, the people who were watching me gasped in amazement as I fell four feet and hit the floor with a thud.
Chow ran his hand over his face as I jumped back up on the beam and suddenly—without warning—started flailing again. My arms were like windmills, trying to keep me on the beam, but I couldn’t maintain my balance. Smack! Once again, I was on the floor.
By this time, the media, coaches, and some of my competitors had gathered to watch me run through my routine. Normally, gymnasts simply go through the motions as they practice their routines in the warm-up gym before a competition. We never go all-out because we want to reserve our energy for the real deal. Chow, however, was so furious at me that he didn’t care if he might be exhausting me.
“I’m not even letting you perform unless you show me you can do this!”
He bit his lower lip in an effort to quell his anger.
I went up on the beam repeatedly, much to the surprise of the people watching. They seemed shocked at how many times I got up and how many times I fell off. I was falling apart before their very eyes. The beam was supposed to be my best apparatus, but I could barely even stay on it.
Time was running out. My stomach ached. I felt like I was in a fog. I jumped up but fell off again. Beam can be dangerous, too, if your heart and mind are not completely focused on your moves. Because it requires such extreme concentration, one distraction, one fearful thought can mean a face-plant on the beam or a perilous tumble to the floor.
Chow pulled me aside. “You’re not going out there until you go through your routine without falling.” What would people say if my coach didn’t let me compete on my best apparatus in the Olympics? I searched his eyes and face and could tell that he absolutely meant it.
I mounted the beam quickly. The other gymnasts were completing their routines, one after another, as I continued to warm up. I was the sixth competitor of eight, and I could already hear the third competitor performing.
As I’ve mentioned, pressure normally doesn’t bother me. I generally thrive under the intensity; somehow it pushes me to perform better than I would in a quiet gym alone. Not this time.
And it wasn’t because I felt the pressure of the Olympics weighing down on me. Rather, I felt empty. I felt done. I’d come to the Games as a favorite to win the gold, but I was going to end up with a few silvers. Not bad, I thought. My face had already been on McDonald’s bags and Coke cans, after all. Someone had even carved a life-size butter sculpture of me at the Iowa State Fair! It seemed everyone expected me to bring home a gold, but my chances to do that had dissipated into this one final opportunity.
“Do it again!” Chow said to me after I fell yet again. I could hear the fourth competitor preparing for her routine. I was competing against Nastia, who was the reigning balance beam world champion, and Chinese gymnast Li Shanshan, who had taken the silver at Worlds the previous year. Could I go up against them while I was in this kind of unfocused state?
“You came into this a favorite to win several golds. You haven’t done that,” Chow said. “This is your chance. Wake up!”
Finally, his words registered within me. If I wasn’t going to show any passion about my performance, he would. I was having a tough time getting my mind back into the game after the all-around. Just as overconfidence can lead to unwarranted bravado, disappointment can lead to debilitating despair. In gymnastics, as in life, balance is hard to come by. But I was determined to try to find it.
On about my eighth attempt, I managed to go through the motions of a routine without screwing up too badly. It wasn’t even that great, but Chow nodded at me. I’d managed not to fall, and he was letting me compete.
“Now you don’t have to worry about the results,” he told me just before I went out. “You need to go out there and do your best. And enjoy yourself.”
I was able to catch the end of the Chinese gymnast Li’s routine. She was considered the best in the world, and she began her routine well. Then she stumbled. During a full twisting back handspring, she lost her balance and began to fall to the floor. She tried to grasp at the beam to stay on, but she slipped off. This was an automatic eight-tenths of a point deduction, which put her out of reach of a medal. When the judges scored her otherwise amazing performance, she’d made a 15.3. She leaned against a wall as she heard her score. Tears filled her eyes.
When I walked out to the beam, I had no idea what was going to happen. With my usual confidence shaken, I realized I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
I mounted the beam, and I don’t remember anything after that. Usually I talk to myself, reciting little reminders about what I should do and how I should concentrate. Not that night. It was like I was a little robot, allowing my muscle memory to kick in. I didn’t even smile.
Before I even realized I had performed, I landed the dismount, with just a small step. Though normally I’m pretty accurate in my scoring capabilities, I couldn’t predict how these Olympic judges would score my routine. In my mind, I figured I would get a 15.8. When my score was revealed, I was astonished.
16.225!
Although I now had the top score, I expected to watch my gold medal be taken away by another gymnast who was able to do her routine in a slightly more daring or more dazzling way. And so I positioned myself on the sidelines with a smile on my face. I’d managed to get through the disappointment pretty graciously so far, and tonight would be no different.
By the time Nastia performed, I had a feeling that Team USA was going to do it again! This felt oddly familiar, with the two of us battling it out for the top-place finishes. Who would go home with the gold? The commentators who narrated the battle of the balance beam said it was Nastia’s grace and beauty versus my energy and power. And it was true—we did have different styles on the beam, on the floor, and in life. The differences were pronounced, and sometimes it came down to which style the judges preferred.
After her elegant beam routine, I hugged her. Would we do it again?
After a few tense moments, Nastia’s score appeared: 16.025.
I was still in position to win the gold! Chow embraced me, but a gymnast from Japan still had to perform. After she went through her routine, it became obvious that I’d won the gold and Nastia had won the silver.
Bela leapt up and down in the stands and shouted while Martha pumped her a
rms in celebration. The United States had come in first and second! Our wins meant that we’d earned two more medals than the Chinese gymnastics team. And even though I had grown to appreciate my new Chinese pals, it felt great to win. Most gratifying of all was knowing that I’d given Coach Chow a gold medal in his hometown of Beijing.
I’d finally won my individual gold, earning the title of Olympic champion on the last event of my 2008 Olympic career. That’s what you call cutting it close.
In a way, it was oddly anticlimactic. There was something about losing the all-around, which I had felt I was going to win, that was very clarifying for me. Don’t get me wrong. I was honored to have won the gold in the balance beam competition—and relieved not to have fallen short of the expectations people had for me.
Yet over the past ten days I had been through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I felt as if a year of my life had been wrapped into those five weeks in Beijing. Truly nothing is more amazing than standing on the Olympic medal podium as “The Star-Spangled Banner” plays. But I realized then as never before that life is more than medals, perfect dismounts, and high scores. I’d worked on the balance beam almost my entire life, but I was only beginning to find a truly winning balance.
Lesson I’ve Learned
I enjoyed the glitz and glamour that came after winning the gold, but strange as it may sound, receiving my silver medals was just as gratifying. After accepting those, I better understood the meaning of this verse: “He gives us even more grace. . . . As the Scriptures say, ‘God opposes the proud but favors the humble’” (James 4:6).