Alicia Sacramone

Alicia Marie Sacramone Quinn (born December 3, 1987) is a retired American artistic gymnast.

Sacramone was born in Boston on December 3, 1987, to parents Fred, an orthodontist, and Gail Sacramone, a hairstylist and salon owner.

She is of Italian descent and has an older brother, Jonathan.

She began studying dance at the age of five and started gymnastics three years later, in 1996.

She trained with Mihai and Silvia Brestyan at a club called Gymnastics and More, and followed them when they opened their own facility in Ashland, Massachusetts.

The Brestyans served as Sacramone's coaches for the rest of her career.

Sacramone began competing at the elite level in 2002 and made the national team for the first time in 2003.

At the 2003 National Championships, Sacramone placed 14th in the all-around, won a bronze medal on floor exercise, and placed fourth on vault, earning a spot on the national team.

Later that year, she participated in her first international competition as a senior, the Massilia Gym Cup in Marseille, France, where she placed fourth on floor and ninth on vault.

In 2004, Sacramone helped the U.S. win a team gold medal at the Pacific Alliance Championships in Honolulu and won the individual vault title.

Her performances caught the attention of the media, which began to mention her as a contender for the American team at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

However, at the 2004 U.S. Nationals, an error-filled performance dashed her hopes of an Olympic berth.

Sacramone continued competing in late 2004 as a member of the national team and was assigned to several international meets, including the Pan American Individual Event Championships, where she won the vault and floor exercise titles.

At the World Cup Finals in Birmingham, England, she attracted media attention again when she upset reigning Olympic vault champion Monica Roşu of Romania to take first place on the event.

At the 2005 National Championships, Sacramone won the individual titles on floor and vault, scoring a 9.9 on floor, and placed third on the balance beam and fourth in the all-around.

She was named to the American team, along with Nastia Liukin and Chellsie Memmel, for the 2005 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, where she won a gold medal on floor and placed third on vault.

She also defended her World Cup vault title

She graduated from Winchester High School in 2006.

Sacramone continued to compete for the U.S. team in 2006 and participated in the World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, where she won a silver medal with the American squad and an individual silver on the vault.

She defended her vault and floor titles at that year's U.S. Nationals.

In September 2006, Sacramone enrolled in Brown University and joined the school's gymnastics team.

During the 2006–07 season, she juggled a full NCAA competition schedule with her elite training at Brestyan's. She was the first female American gymnast since Kelly Garrison in the late 1980s to combine full-time university studies and NCAA competition with elite gymnastics.

During her first year at Brown, she broke the school's records for the highest scores in the all-around, vault and floor exercise.

She was named ECAC Rookie of the Year and swept the Ivy League Classic, becoming the first gymnast to win the all-around and all four events, and posting the highest all-around total ever recorded at the competition.

She qualified as an individual on the floor exercise for the NCAA National Championships, the second Brown gymnast ever to do so, but did not advance beyond the preliminary round.

At the 2007 National Championships, Sacramone competed on three events, choosing to skip the uneven bars.

She defended her title on the vault, placed second on the floor exercise and third on the balance beam.

Following Nationals, she was named to the American team for the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

During the preliminary round at the World Championships, Sacramone qualified for the event finals on floor and vault and contributed to the top-qualifying position of the American team.

She also posted a score on beam that would have been high enough to qualify her to the beam final.

However, due to an International Federation of Gymnastics rule allowing only two athletes per country to participate in each event final, Sacramone was unable to compete for a beam medal, because teammates Liukin and Shawn Johnson qualified ahead of her.

In the team final, she competed on vault, beam and floor, earning scores of 15.750, 15.600 and 15.325, respectively.

When the American team faltered after a difficult beam rotation, in which two gymnasts made major errors, Sacramone gathered the team for a pep talk to refocus them for floor.

The American team earned 184.400 points overall, which was good enough to secure the gold medal ahead of China and Romania.

In event finals, Sacramone received a bronze medal for her vault performance and a silver on floor behind Johnson.

She was visibly upset by her performances, and fought back tears after floor and during the flower and medal ceremonies.

She won a silver medal with the United States team at the 2008 Summer Olympics and is the 2005 World Champion on floor exercise and the 2010 World Champion on the vault.

With a total of eleven World Championship and Olympic medals, Sacramone is the fourth most decorated U.S. female gymnast, behind Simone Biles (30), Shannon Miller (16), and Nastia Liukin (14).

Although she tied with Mohini Bhardwaj for the silver medal on the vault, she finished in 19th place overall and did not qualify to the Olympic Trials.

She also injured her back and required time off to recover.