On Friday August 19th, 2011, one of my favorite gymnasts ever, Elise Ray, was inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame! I am completely happy and stoked for her. I have followed her career since 1999 and beyond .. her National Championship in 2000, her first place in the All-Around at the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials, through all her disappointment and heartbreak in Sydney, and her remarkable collegiate career at the University of Michigan.
Elise is really special to me because following her career turned me into the gymnastics superfan I am today. I did watch the Mag 7 in the '96 Olympics, but I never followed gymnastics outside of watching it in the Olympics until I became a fan of Elise Ray. Elise was great on all 4 events, vault was probably her weakest, but she excelled on the other 3, especially the uneven bars. Her bars routine(s) are still my favorites to this day, even with all the newer difficulty that has been added in the past 10 years, simply because she performed them so elegantly and gracefully but with such strength! This is her bars routine from the 2000 Nationals. Her pirouettes on the high bar are my absolute favorite, so gorgeous!
That helped make her the National Champion. Her floor was also spectacular, and beautiful. I've seen so many different versions of her floor routine, and I can't choose a favorite. This one is from day 2 of the 2000 Olympic Trials. She was a rock on beam in every single competition of 2000 up until Sydney. Her routine was so elegant and everything about it was beautiful. I love love the second video I posted below. It is her beam routine from day 1 of the 2000 Olympic Trials, and the commentator says "So far here tonight, it's been Elise Ray and everybody else." She dominated those trials and I watch them all the time :)
I was so so so super excited for the Sydney Olympics, mainly because of her, but also because I loved the rest of the team as well, seeing them all as I'd been following Elise's competitions. Unfortunately, Sydney was not a good experience for any of the team. They suffered 2 injuries before qualifiers even began (Jamie Dantzscher and Morgan White) and in qualifiers Elise's shoulder popped out of it's socket during her floor routine. She was able to continue, but the US made it to the team final barely, grabbing the last spot. The team final led to more heartbreak. The US had a much better showing than in qualifiers, but missed out on a bronze medal.
Elise made it to the All-Around, but the All-Around for her was disastrous. Many of the gymnasts had huge falls on vault (many were scary), and Elise was one of them. Midway through the competition, they found out the reason was that the vault apparatus itself was set 5 centimeters too low, and the gymnasts were given the option to redo their vaults at the end of the competition. Elise chose to, but the mental damage had already been done; she suffered a fall of the balance beam in the following rotation.There was a really scary crash in her warm up vault (in the video you can tell they're talking about it at the beginning) but I couldn't find a video of it. This is the first of her two vaults in the All-Around, you can tell clearly something isn't right.
After the Sydney games, Elise attended the University of Michigan and competed for them for 5 years. She won the NCAA All-Around title in 2001, beam in 2002, and bars in 2004. She was also 14-time All American. There's an article that was written about her on Michigan's website, about how many bad feelings and regrets she had about gymnastics and the Olympics when she came there and how her coach helped her let go of her regrets and love the sport again. This is a video of her on beam at the 2004 NCAA Regionals.
"Michigan saved me, in many ways, because of everything that it is," Ray said. "I got to live, experience the diversity, just stretch my wings and fly. I didn't realize how much I needed to do that until later. I still had gymnastics in my life, but it was fun again. I loved every minute of it because the pressure was different, and it wasn't anything negative."
Just last year, the Chinese team from the 2000 Sydney Olympics were stripped of their bronze medals because an investigation discovered that one of their team members was not of age to compete in the Olympics that year. The US was finally given some good memories to look back on, being awarded the bronze medals at the VISA Championships of last year.
"When they put the medal around my neck, along with my teammates, I just started bawling -- straight-up crying," Ray said. "I don't know where that came from, I wasn't expecting that to be the way I handled things. It obviously was not the same as getting the medal in Sydney, during the Olympics, being on that podium, but somehow it ended up being so emotional for me.
I was so happy for her and for all of her teammates, my 2000 Sydney babies :) They have such a special place in my heart, it was because of them that I fell in love with the sport and that I enjoy following it so much today. And to cap off the end to an amazing career, her induction into the US Gymnastics Hall of Fame yesterday. This is a video of her induction speech and it's so beautiful<3
"I went through a lot -- some really big highs, and some horrible lows. The biggest thing I can say is I am a survivor through it all, and honors like being in the Hall of Fame or getting an Olympic medal restore your faith in everything a bit."
Congratulations, Elise, on a wonderfully successful gymnastics career.
You are an inspiration to me<3
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