Shannon Miller
Encyclopedia
Shannon Lee Miller is a former artistic gymnast
from Edmond, Oklahoma
. She is the most decorated gymnast in U.S. History, and considered one of the greatest gymnasts the United States has ever produced. Miller was the 1993 and 1994 World All-Around 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.
, 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. As a twelve 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. She 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.)
, 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.
, Miller fell during her final routine on the floor exercise when she was performing her mount of whipback through to full twisting double back. Due to injury, Miller missed the 1992 Individual Apparatus World Championships in Paris. Miller competed 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.
Miller won the compulsory portion of the 1992 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. She may be 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: 0.012 points. 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 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. Tim Daggett
described Shannon's vault as "the most perfect piece of gymnastics that I have ever seen. I've had conversations with a number of other people who were in the arena, and they agree."
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 Miloşovici
, 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.
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 narrowly beat Gina Gogean
of Romania. 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. She was forced to withdraw from vault due to illness.
At the 1994 world championships in Brisbane, Miller again took the all-around title. She beat another Romanian into second place, Lavinia Miloşovici
, and once again there was an ex-Soviet in third. As in 1993 her performance was 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 gymnastics fans and experts alike 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. 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. She rebounded by earning silver medals on the vault and the uneven bars, and gold medals on the balance beam and floor exercise. She 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, where she would win all five silver medals, each time placing second to Dominique Dawes
.
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 Comăneci
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 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.
, Jaycie Phelps
, Amy Chow
, Dominique Moceanu
, Kerri Strug and Amanda Borden
. 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, which she landed with a big lunge forward. Miller managed 8th place finish, making her the highest ranking American in that competition. Miller won the individual Olympic gold medal on beam. This 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, becoming the first United States woman to win an individual gold medal at a non-boycotted Olympics as well as the first to win any individual apparatus in a non-boycotted Olympics. Miller concluded her career with 7 Olympic medals (two gold, two silver, three bronze).
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.
Her accomplishments in the sport of gymnastics have won her several major honors. She has been named to USA Gymnastics
Hall of Fame, the US Olympic Hall of Fame
, and the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame and the Women's International Sports Hall of Fame.
Miller is the only woman, in any sport, to be inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame twice, as an individual and for her team. With seven Olympic and nine World Championship medals, Shannon Miller is the most decorated United States Gymnast, male or female. Miller is currently tied with Nastia Liukin
as the gymnasts who have won the second most World Championship medals (9) for the United States (second to Alicia Sacramone
, who won ten World medals). However, Miller's world medal count includes two World All-Around Titles and a total of five golds.
, working with a flexible program that accommodated her training, travel and competition schedule.
In 2003, she graduated from the University of Houston
with a B.B.A.
in Marketing
and Entrepreneurship
. Later that year she entered Boston College Law School
and graduated in 2007. Miller opted not to take the Bar Exam in any state. She moved to Florida where she made appearances at gyms, conducting beam clinics, and starring in workout DVDs.
In August 2007, Miller announced her engagement to John Falconetti, the 39-year-old President of Drummond Press and past chairman of the Duval County, Florida
Republican
executive committee. The couple married on August 25, 2008, and have one son.
In February 2011, Miller revealed she had been diagnosed with germ cell ovarian cancer after doctors discovered a baseball-sized cyst. The cyst had been surgically removed the previous month. Miller underwent three cycles of chemotherapy from March 7 to May 2, 2011.
Artistic gymnastics
Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics where gymnasts perform short routines on different apparatus, with less time for vaulting . The sport is governed by the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique , which designs the Code of Points and regulates all aspects of international elite...
from Edmond, Oklahoma
Edmond, Oklahoma
Edmond is a city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area in the central part of the state. As of the 2010 census, the population was 81,405, making it the sixth largest city in the state of Oklahoma....
. She is the most decorated gymnast in U.S. History, and considered one of the greatest gymnasts the United States has ever produced. Miller was the 1993 and 1994 World All-Around Champion, the 1996 Olympics
1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....
balance beam gold medalist, the 1995 Pan Am Games
Pan American Games
The Pan-American or Pan American Games are a major event in the Americas featuring summer and formerly winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Pan American Games are the second largest multi-sport event after the Summer Olympics...
all-around champion, and a member of the gold medal-winning Magnificent 7
Magnificent Seven (Gymnastics)
The Magnificent Seven is the name given to the 1996 United States Olympic Women's Gymnastics Team that won the first ever Gold Medal for the United States in the Women's Team Competition at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics...
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.
Early years
Miller was born in Rolla, MissouriRolla, Missouri
Rolla is a city in Phelps County, Missouri, United States, midway between the larger cities of St. Louis and Springfield along I-44. The population in the 2010 United States Census was 19,559.It is the county seat of Phelps County...
, but she and her family moved to Edmond, Oklahoma
Edmond, Oklahoma
Edmond is a city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area in the central part of the state. As of the 2010 census, the population was 81,405, making it the sixth largest city in the state of Oklahoma....
when she was only six months old. Miller began gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
at age five, and four years later, she and her mother traveled to Moscow, Russia to participate in a gymnastics camp. As a twelve 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. She 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
Kim Zmeskal
Kimberly Lynn "Kim" Zmeskal Burdette is a retired American gymnast and a former national and world gymnastics champion in the early 1990s.-Early life and training:...
had also amassed this same total score at the 1990 USA vs. USSR Challenge.)
1991
At her first World Championships in 1991 in IndianapolisIndianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
, Miller won two silver medals - in the uneven bars (where she tied Soviet Tatiana Gutsu
Tatiana Gutsu
Tatiana Konstantinivna Gutsu is a Ukrainian gymnast, winner of the 1992 Olympic all-around title. Renowned as a trickster, the routines she competed were some of the most difficult ever in the sport...
) 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.
1992
At the 1992 American CupAmerican Cup (gymnastics)
The American Cup, is an elite senior level international gymnastics competition held in the United States, and is generally considered to be one of the first major competitions of the Gymnastics season, as it is held in March or February of each year. In 1978-79 the event was sponsored by Dial and...
, Miller fell during her final routine on the floor exercise when she was performing her mount of whipback through to full twisting double back. Due to injury, Miller missed the 1992 Individual Apparatus World Championships in Paris. Miller competed 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.
Miller won the compulsory portion of the 1992 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. She may be best-remembered for her performance in the Individual All-around at the 1992 Olympic Games
1992 Summer Olympics
The 1992 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event celebrated in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in 1992. The International Olympic Committee voted in 1986 to separate the Summer and Winter Games, which had been held in the same...
. In a dramatic duel with the Unified Team’s Tatiana Gutsu
Tatiana Gutsu
Tatiana Konstantinivna Gutsu is a Ukrainian gymnast, winner of the 1992 Olympic all-around title. Renowned as a trickster, the routines she competed were some of the most difficult ever in the sport...
, Miller missed out on the gold by the closest margin in Olympic history: 0.012 points. 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
Rozalia Galiyeva
Rozaliya Ilfovna Galiyeva or Roza Galieva is a gymnast who competed in the 1992 Summer Olympics and 1996 Summer Olympics....
, 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 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
Carly Patterson
Carly Rae Patterson is an American singer and former gymnast. She is the 2004 Olympic All-Around Champion and a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame...
won the title in 2004. Tim Daggett
Tim Daggett
Timothy P. Daggett is an American gymnast born in Springfield, Massachusetts and an Olympic gold medalist. He is a graduate of West Springfield High School and UCLA, who competed in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, along with Bart Conner, Peter Vidmar and Mitch Gaylord...
described Shannon's vault as "the most perfect piece of gymnastics that I have ever seen. I've had conversations with a number of other people who were in the arena, and they agree."
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 Miloşovici
Lavinia Milosovici
Lavinia Corina Miloşovici is a Romanian Olympic gymnast. An exceptionally successful athlete on the international competition circuit, Miloşovici, also known as "Milo" in the gymnastics community, is considered to be one of Romania's top gymnasts of the 1990s and one of the most prolific female...
, 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.
1993 and 1994
Miller dominated world competition for the next two years, becoming the only American back-to-back World All-Around Champion in 1993 and 1994. Her performance at the 1993 world championships in BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
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 narrowly beat Gina Gogean
Gina Gogean
Gina Gogean is a retired gymnast from Romania who competed internationally in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. During her career she won an impressive number of 30 medals at Olympic Games, world championships or continental championships...
of Romania. 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. She was forced to withdraw from vault due to illness.
At the 1994 world championships in Brisbane, Miller again took the all-around title. She beat another Romanian into second place, Lavinia Miloşovici
Lavinia Milosovici
Lavinia Corina Miloşovici is a Romanian Olympic gymnast. An exceptionally successful athlete on the international competition circuit, Miloşovici, also known as "Milo" in the gymnastics community, is considered to be one of Romania's top gymnasts of the 1990s and one of the most prolific female...
, and once again there was an ex-Soviet in third. As in 1993 her performance was 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 gymnastics fans and experts alike 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. It was not until the Goodwill Games
Goodwill Games
The Goodwill Games was an international sports competition, created by Ted Turner in reaction to the political troubles surrounding the Olympic Games of the 1980s...
in late 1994 that her winning streak ended. Dina Kotchetkova
Dina Kotchetkova
Dina Anatolyevna Kochetkova is a Russian gymnast who competed at the 1996 Olympics. Stylistically, Dina was considered by many to be the "last of the Soviets," performing difficult skills with elegant, clean technique...
, beaten into third place at the world championships, took her competitive revenge by narrowly defeating Shannon Miller 39.325 to 39.268. She rebounded by earning silver medals on the vault and the uneven bars, and gold medals on the balance beam and floor exercise. She 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, where she would win all five silver medals, each time placing second to Dominique Dawes
Dominique Dawes
Dominique Margaux Dawes is a retired United States artistic gymnast. She was 10-year member of the U.S. national gymnastics team, the 1994 U.S. all-around senior National Champion, a three-time Olympian, a World Championships silver medalist and a member of the gold-medal winning "Magnificent...
.
1995
Olympian and television commentator Kathy JohnsonKathy Johnson
Kathy Johnson, also known as Kathy Johnson Clarke is an American commentator and retired artistic gymnast...
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 Comăneci
Nadia Comaneci
Nadia Elena Comăneci is a Romanian gymnast, winner of three Olympic gold medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and the first female gymnast ever to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. She is also the winner of two gold medals at the 1980 Summer...
in 1976. Bart Conner
Bart Conner
Bart Wayne Conner is a former American gymnast who, as a member of the gold medal-winning men's gymnastics team at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games won an individual gold on the parallel bars...
concurred, stating that only if Miller faltered could she be beaten. In 1994, however, Miller placed second to Dominique Dawes
Dominique Dawes
Dominique Margaux Dawes is a retired United States artistic gymnast. She was 10-year member of the U.S. national gymnastics team, the 1994 U.S. all-around senior National Champion, a three-time Olympian, a World Championships silver medalist and a member of the gold-medal winning "Magnificent...
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
Dominique Moceanu
Dominique "Domi" Helena Moceanu is an American gymnast who was a member of the Olympic Gold medal winning 1996 U.S...
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 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.
1996
Although struggling with severe tendinitis in her left wrist,and a pulled hamstring injury Miller won the 1996 National Championships and once again established herself as the top American entering the Olympics. Here she unveiled her new Yurchenko 1 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. 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 DawesDominique Dawes
Dominique Margaux Dawes is a retired United States artistic gymnast. She was 10-year member of the U.S. national gymnastics team, the 1994 U.S. all-around senior National Champion, a three-time Olympian, a World Championships silver medalist and a member of the gold-medal winning "Magnificent...
, Jaycie Phelps
Jaycie Phelps
Jaycie Lynn Phelps is a United States Olympic gymnast and member of the 1996 Olympic Gold medal U.S. women's gymnastics team, Magnificent 7.-External links:*...
, Amy Chow
Amy Chow
Amy Yuen Yee Chow is a retired American gymnast and a member of the famous Magnificent 7, the first American team to win Olympic gymnastics gold...
, Dominique Moceanu
Dominique Moceanu
Dominique "Domi" Helena Moceanu is an American gymnast who was a member of the Olympic Gold medal winning 1996 U.S...
, Kerri Strug and Amanda Borden
Amanda Borden
Amanda Kathleen Borden is a retired American gymnast, who was one of the members of the gold medalist United States team in the 1996 Summer Olympics, the Magnificent 7. Borden was the team captain of the Magnificent Seven, with all six other members submitting her name in the vote, including the...
. Miller led the American team to history as the Magnificent 7
Magnificent Seven (Gymnastics)
The Magnificent Seven is the name given to the 1996 United States Olympic Women's Gymnastics Team that won the first ever Gold Medal for the United States in the Women's Team Competition at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics...
— 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
Lilia Podkopayeva
Lilia Alexandrivna Podkopayeva ; born August 15, 1978 in Donetsk) is a retired Ukrainian gymnast who became the 1996 Olympic all-around champion, the 1995 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships all-around champion and the 1996 European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships all-around champion...
. 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
Cortisone
Cortisone is a steroid hormone. It is one of the main hormones released by the adrenal gland in response to stress. In chemical structure, it is a corticosteroid closely related to corticosterone. It is used to treat a variety of ailments and can be administered intravenously, orally,...
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, which she landed with a big lunge forward. Miller managed 8th place finish, making her the highest ranking American in that competition. Miller won the individual Olympic gold medal on beam. This 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
Balance beam (gymnastics)
The balance beam is an artistic gymnastics apparatus, as well as the event performed using the apparatus. Both the apparatus and the event are sometimes referred to as simply "beam". The English abbreviation for the event in gymnastics scoring is BB....
at the Olympics, becoming the first United States woman to win an individual gold medal at a non-boycotted Olympics as well as the first to win any individual apparatus in a non-boycotted Olympics. Miller concluded her career with 7 Olympic medals (two gold, two silver, three bronze).
Post-1996
Her accomplishments in the sport of gymnastics have won her several major honors. She has been named to USA Gymnastics
USA Gymnastics
United States of America Gymnastics or USAG is the national governing body for gymnastics in the United States. The mission of USA Gymnastics is to encourage participation and the pursuit of excellence in all aspects of gymnastics....
Hall of Fame, the US Olympic Hall of Fame
United States Olympic Hall of Fame
The United States Olympic Hall of Fame is an honor roll of the top American Olympic athletes.The Hall of Fame was established by the United States Olympic Committee in 1979; the first members were inducted in 1983. Between 1992 and 2003, the Hall of Fame went dormant, with no induction of new...
, and the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame and the Women's International Sports Hall of Fame.
Miller is the only woman, in any sport, to be inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame twice, as an individual and for her team. With seven Olympic and nine World Championship medals, Shannon Miller is the most decorated United States Gymnast, male or female. Miller is currently tied with Nastia Liukin
Nastia Liukin
Anastasia Valeryevna "Nastia" Liukin is a Russian-American artistic gymnast. She was the 2008 Olympic individual all-around Champion, the 2005 and 2007 World Champion on the balance beam, and the 2005 World Champion on the uneven bars...
as the gymnasts who have won the second most World Championship medals (9) for the United States (second to Alicia Sacramone
Alicia Sacramone
Alicia Marie Sacramone is an American artistic gymnast.Sacramone began gymnastics at the age of eight, began competing in the elite ranks in 2002 and joined the U.S. national team in 2003. At US National Championships from 2004 to 2008, she won twelve medals, including four golds on vault and two...
, who won ten World medals). However, Miller's world medal count includes two World All-Around Titles and a total of five golds.
Major medals
- For a complete list of medals, click "show" for the Medal record on the above infobox.
- 1991 Worlds1991 World Artistic Gymnastics ChampionshipsThe 26th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships were held in Indianapolis, USA, in the Hoosier Dome, September 6 to 15, 1991.-Medals:-All-round:-Apparatus:-All-round:-Apparatus:-References:**...
: Bars silver, team silver - 1992 Olympics1992 Summer OlympicsThe 1992 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event celebrated in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in 1992. The International Olympic Committee voted in 1986 to separate the Summer and Winter Games, which had been held in the same...
: All-Around silver, beam silver, floor bronze, bars bronze, team bronze - 1993 Worlds1993 World Artistic Gymnastics ChampionshipsThe Artistic Gymnastics World Championships were held in Birmingham, England in 1993. There was no team competition at this meet; gymnasts competed in the all-around and event finals only....
: All-Around gold, bars gold, floor gold - 1994 Worlds1994 World Artistic Gymnastics ChampionshipsThe 1994 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were held in Brisbane, Australia from 19–24 April 1994.Only the all-around and apparatus events were contested at this meet. A team World Championships meet was held in Dortmund, Germany in November 1994...
: All-Around gold, beam gold - 1994 Team Worlds1994 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships (Team)The 1994 World Artistic Gymnastics Team Championships were held in Dortmund, Germany from 15–20 November 1994.Only the team event was contested at this meet. The individual events and all-around were contested at another World Championships in Brisbane, Australia in April 1994. 1994 was the only...
: Team silver - 1995 Worlds1995 World Artistic Gymnastics ChampionshipsThe 30th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships were held at Sun Dome Fukui in Sabae, Japan in 1995.- All-round :NB: Team rosters are incomplete.- Apparatus :- All-around :- Vault :- Uneven Bars :- Balance Beam :- Floor Exercise:...
: Team bronze - 1996 Olympics1996 Summer OlympicsThe 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....
: Beam gold, team gold
- 1991 Worlds
Education
As a teenager, Miller attended Edmond North High SchoolEdmond North High School
Edmond North High School is located in Edmond, Oklahoma. The school colors are silver, white and navy. The school's mascot is the Siberian Husky....
, working with a flexible program that accommodated her training, travel and competition schedule.
In 2003, she graduated from the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
with a B.B.A.
Bachelor of Business Administration
The Bachelor of Business Administration is a bachelor's degree in Commerce and business administration. In most universities, the degree is conferred upon a student after four years of full-time study in one or more areas of business concentrations; see below...
in Marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the act of being an entrepreneur, which can be defined as "one who undertakes innovations, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods". This may result in new organizations or may be part of revitalizing mature organizations in response...
. Later that year she entered Boston College Law School
Boston College Law School
Boston College Law School is one of the six professional graduate schools at Boston College. Located approximately 1.5 miles from the main Boston College campus in Chestnut Hill, Boston College Law School is situated on a wooded campus in Newton, Massachusetts.With approximately 800 students and...
and graduated in 2007. Miller opted not to take the Bar Exam in any state. She moved to Florida where she made appearances at gyms, conducting beam clinics, and starring in workout DVDs.
Personal life
Miller married lawyer and ophthalmologist Christopher B. Phillips in June 1999. The couple separated in 2004; their divorce was finalized in 2006. While Phillips accused Miller of infidelity with a married male athlete, the charge was denied by Miller and did not figure into the divorce grounds.In August 2007, Miller announced her engagement to John Falconetti, the 39-year-old President of Drummond Press and past chairman of the Duval County, Florida
Duval County, Florida
Duval County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2010, the population was 864,263. Its county seat is Jacksonville, with which the Duval County government has been consolidated since 1968...
Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
executive committee. The couple married on August 25, 2008, and have one son.
In February 2011, Miller revealed she had been diagnosed with germ cell ovarian cancer after doctors discovered a baseball-sized cyst. The cyst had been surgically removed the previous month. Miller underwent three cycles of chemotherapy from March 7 to May 2, 2011.