Carly Patterson

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Personal information
Full name: Carly Rae Patterson
Country Represented:  United States
Date of birth: February 4, 1988 (1988-02-04) (age 21)
Place of birth: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Hometown: Allen, Texas
Height: 152 centimetres (5 ft 0 in)
Discipline: Women's artistic gymnastics
Level: Senior Elite
Club: World Olympic Gymnastics Academy
Head coach(es): Evgeny Marchenko
Assistant coach(es): Natasha Boyarskaya
Choreographer: Tatiana Shegolkova
Eponymous skills: Patterson (balance beam)
Retired: 2006
Carly Patterson
Birth name Carly Rae Patterson
Born February 4, 1988 (1988-02-04) (age 21)
Origin Allen, Texas, USA
Genre(s) Rock
Pop
Occupation(s) Musician, Athlete
Instrument(s) Vocals
Years active 2007Present
Label(s) MusicMind Records
Website CarlyPatterson.org

Carly Rae Patterson (born February 4, 1988 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is an American former gymnast. She is the 2004 Olympic All-Around Champion and a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame. She currently lives in Allen, Texas.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Pre-Olympic career

Patterson was at a cousin's birthday party at Baton Rouge's Elite Gymnastics club in 1994 when coach Johnny Moyal--a three-time Israeli Olympian noticed her talent and suggested that she begin to take lessons.[1]Originally her mom was hesitant about it but Carly started tumbling and jumping around her house where there was not much room, and as her mom did not want her to get hurt, she enrolled her in Gymnastics In 2000, Patterson participated in the Top Gym Tournament in Belgium; she won the silver medal in the all-around and the bronze medal for balance beam, which she has said is her favorite event[citation needed].

At the 2001 Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, she was ranked second in the all-around before the final rotation. She was suffering from a stomach illness[citation needed], however, and she missed three landings on the floor exercise and finished seventh overall. Nevertheless, her balance beam routine was particularly spectacular, featuring what would become her signature double Arabian dismount (later to be named "the Patterson"). Carly Patterson also performed the double Arabian dismount at the 2004 Olympic Games, in Athens, Greece.

Patterson was named the U.S. Junior National All-Around champion in 2002. She had previously received fourth place in 2000 and third place in 2001. By this time, she was largely considered the future of American gymnasts[citation needed] and a viable candidate for the 2004 Olympic All-Around title. From 2002 onward, she would continue to win nearly every All-Around event she entered. She was forced to sit out the 2003 U.S. National Championships, which would have been her first Nationals event as a senior, because of a broken elbow. At the 2003 World Gymnastics Championships in Anaheim, California, she earned the all-around silver medal —the first time an American woman had won an all-around medal at that competition since 1994. She also helped her team to earn the team gold medal.

Patterson won the all around at the prestigious American Cup competition in both 2003 and 2004. In 2003, Patterson was the youngest competitor in the event, having just turned 15, and it was her first major senior competition. In 2004, she swept the meet, winning all four events and the all around, collecting a total of $14,000 for her wins ($10,000 for the all around, $1,000 per event).

In 2004, she became a co-champion with Courtney Kupets in the all-around event at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships. She also won the floor exercise and placed second on balance beam.

At the 2004 Olympic trials, Patterson had two uncharacteristic falls on balance beam over the course of two days, dropping her to third place. Although she did not earn an automatic Olympic berth at this competition, her successful performances at the training camp following trials were more than enough to place her on the team.

[edit] 2004 Summer Olympics

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Patterson competed as an all-around athlete in the preliminary competition, finishing first overall and qualifying for the all-around and balance beam finals. In the team finals, Carly did not perform as well she did in the preliminaries. She under-rotated her vault, stubbed the low bar with her foot, and her beam routine was marred by wobbles and a lunge forward on the dismount; only on floor did Carly perform as well as she was capable of. She later admitted that she was more nervous than she had previously been in the competition[citation needed]. The U.S. team made other mistakes, such as Courtney Kupets costly missed turn on floor, and came away with the silver medal after having been favorites for gold.

The Individual All-Around proved to be the much-anticipated battle between Carly and legend Svetlana Khorkina. After scoring lower than usual on the vault (9.375), Carly was stronger on her last three events, scoring 9.575 on uneven bars, 9.725 on the balance beam, and 9.712 on the floor exercise. She won the gold medal, an achievement that had only been attained by one other American gymnast, Mary Lou Retton, exactly twenty years before during the 1984 summer games. Carly became the first American woman to ever win the Olympic All-Around title in a fully attended[clarification needed] Olympic Games.

On August 23, 2004 she competed in the finals for the beam event where she received a score of 9.775 and won the silver medal behind Catalina Ponor of Romania.

Leading up to the 2004 Olympic Games, she was prepared by her two former Soviet coaches: the famous Russian acrobat Evgeny Marchenko, who immigrated to the United States from Latvia after the Collapse of the Soviet Union, and Natalya Boyarskaya.

[edit] After Athens

Soon after the Olympic games ended, it was discovered that Carly had several bulging disks in her lower back that had gone unnoticed. She announced her intention to take time off from the sport to rehabilitate her back. She officially retired from the sport in 2006. Her coach said in a TV interview[citation needed], "It's hard to top an All-Around Gold."

She has stayed occupied with event appearances, gymnastics-related and otherwise. She has also landed a number of high profile corporate sponsorships; she appeared in a Mobile ESPN commercial aired during Super Bowl XL. She also has finished her authorized biography, which was released in April 2006.

[edit] Celebrity Duets TV show

On August 29, 2006, she started her appearance on the show Celebrity Duets. The program was a reality show executive produced by Simon Cowell of American Idol fame. Celebrities not known for singing were teamed up with professional singers; one of the eight celebrities was voted off each week. The show aired every Thursday on FOX with a results show each Friday, from September 7, 2006 to October 13, 2006.

On September 8, 2006, during the "results" show, she joined Cheech Marin and Lea Thompson in the bottom three. The audience, however, spared Patterson from elimination to continue competing the next week on Thursday, September 14.

On September 15, 2006, during the "results" show, Carly Patterson was eliminated from the competition (singing a duet with Jesse McCartney). Patterson said that she would continue to sing. She also encouraged the audience to continue voting for the remaining celebrities because each vote raised money for charity.

[edit] Music career

First announced in a March 2005 interview, Patterson has expressed interest in becoming a professional singer. On August 21, 2005, she gave an interview on FOX Sports Net's Sports Sunday in which she gave more details on her future career. She sang a small segment of "Damaged" and said that she went to New York City to record the demo. On December 18, 2005, she announced that she signed a demo contract for four songs with Papa Joe's Records, owned by Joe Simpson, father of Jessica and Ashlee Simpson. She worked with singer and writer Chris Megert. They wrote and produced songs titled "Time to Wake Up" and "Lost in Me". The demo contract with Papa Joe Records has since expired.

On February 4, 2008, Carly signed a recording contract with MusicMind Records, a Chicago based Indie label. Her new single Temporary Life (Ordinary Girl) was released on March 25, 2008. Her debut album (title unknown) was scheduled for release August 5, 2008, coincidentally, the same week as the start of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The CD did not release on the day it was supposed to. Carly is still working on it and it may come out soon.

On September 10, 2008, a remixed version of Carly's Temporary Life single was played on the Bobby Bones Show. The mixed version featured the new artist Captain Caucasian, which is the pseudonym for Bobby Bones.

[edit] Honors and Awards

Patterson was chosen for the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2009.[2]

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

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