Kerri Strug

Kerri Allyson Strug (born November 19, 1977) is a retired American gymnast from Tucson, Arizona.

Strug was trained by American coach Jim Gault until January 1991, when she moved to Houston, Texas, to train with coach Béla Károlyi.

At that time, she also joined the United States National Team.

In 1992, as the youngest member of the entire U.S. team at age 14, she won a team bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics.

Throughout the Team Compulsories and Optionals, she and Kim Zmeskal competed for the final US available spot to compete in the all-around.

She was eventually edged out by Zmeskal, with Shannon Miller and Betty Okino as the other two American gymnasts to qualify for the all-around.

After the 1992 Games, Strug chose to move to Edmond, Oklahoma, to train under the coaching of Steve Nunno at the Dynamo Gymnastics Club, where she trained with Shannon Miller.

There, she struggled with a serious injury to her stomach.

At the 1993 Nationals, Strug placed 3rd in the all-around, 2nd on the uneven bars, and 3rd on floor exercise.

She completed the Yurchenko ½ vault.

However, she had a weak second vault and did not medal in that event.

After this competition, Strug left Edmond to return home to Tucson, Arizona, where she trained with Arthur Akopian, who flew in from California to train her, with the assistance of Jim Gault.

Gault was Strug's coach when she started gymnastics at age 3.

While performing the compulsory uneven bars set in 1994, she pinged off the bar, subsequently releasing too early to be able to make the transition to low bar.

She lost control and flew off the high bar backwards, landing in a twisted position on her side beneath the low bar.

She was carried out of the gym on a stretcher and was taken to Desert Regional Hospital.

The injury turned out to be a badly pulled back muscle, which required extensive rehabilitation.

She recovered in time for the 1994 World Championships.

In 1995, Strug graduated from Green Fields Country Day School in Tucson, Arizona.

Eventually, the coaching arrangement with Gault and Akopian became untenable as Gault was restricted in his coaching by NCAA recruiting rules.

Strug once again left home, in July 1995, to train at Aerials Gymnastics in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with Tom and Lori Forster.

Later that year, at the 1995 Nationals, Strug placed 5th in the all-around and came in 3rd on the uneven bars.

At the 1995 World Championships, she was a member of the bronze medal-winning U.S. team, and she placed 7th in the all-around.

She trained with the Forsters from July 1995 until December 1995.

She was a member of the Magnificent Seven, the victorious all-around women's gymnastics team that represented the United States at the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Strug performed the vault that clinched the gold for the U.S. team despite having injured her ankle.

Strug began training in gymnastics at the age of three.

She began competing in gymnastics at the age of eight.

Her sister Lisa was already competing in gymnastics at the time that Strug was born.

She then moved back to Houston to train with Károlyi again in preparation for the 1996 Olympics.

She beat the competition at the 1996 American Cup in the all-around by almost a half point, a huge margin with the scoring system at that time.

She also placed 1st on floor exercises and balance beam and 2nd on vault and uneven bars in the event finals.

At the 1996 U.S. Nationals, Strug placed 5th in the all-around and came in 2nd on both vault and floor.

Strug participated in the 1996 Olympics as a member of the U.S. women's team, often referred to as the Magnificent Seven.

After compulsories, Strug was ranked 9th overall and had placed high enough to qualify herself for the all-around.

She posted the second-highest score on floor exercise—but qualified first in floor exercise event finals after the team final and ahead of eventual floor exercise gold medalist Lilia Podkopayeva—and fourth-highest on vault, which would qualify her for event finals in her two strongest events.

In the team competition, an event dominated by the Soviets for decades and never won by the United States, the U.S. competed with the Russian, Romanian, and Ukrainian teams.

The Russians came into the team competition with a very narrow lead.

The event came down to the final rotation on the final day of the team competition, July 23, 1996.

Going into the final rotation, with the Russians on floor exercise and the U.S. on vault, the U.S. women held a commanding 0.897-point lead over the Russian team.