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CARLY PATTERSON
Official website: www.carlypatterson.org
Carly Rae Patterson (born February 4, 1988 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is a former American gymnast
(the 2004 Olympic All-Around Champion). She currently lives in Allen, Texas.
Patterson was at a cousin's birthday party at a gymnastics club in 1994 when a coach at the gym saw her and asked her
mother if she was taking lessons. When her mother said no the coach was amazed at her natural talent. Carly then began
taking lessons. 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.
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, 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").
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Carly Patterson, 2005 US Nationals
Photograph copyright © Heather Maynez, www.gymnpics.com. All rights reserved. |
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 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 because of a broken elbow — a big disappointment for Patterson, as this
was to be her first senior nationals. 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. It appeared Patterson would once again fight it out with Russia's
Svetlana Khorkina in Athens.
Patterson won the all around at the prestigious American Cup competition in both 2003 and 2004. (This event helped to launch
Nadia Comaneci's career before the Olympics in 1976.) In 2003, Patterson was the
youngest competitor, 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. Few doubted that she was a huge contender
for the Olympic All-Around title.
At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Patterson competed as an all-around athlete and delivered outstanding performances
in the preliminary competition, finishing first overall, 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.
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.
In the Individual All-Around, Carly was back to her best and the competition 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 20 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 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.
Soon after the Olympic games ended, it was discovered that Carly had a couple of bulging disks in her lower back. The
problem has apparently been festering for years, but had somehow gone without notice. Carly announced after the injury
was made public that she would be taking some time off from gymnastics to nurse the injury. Even at full health, Carly
would not have been able to train as intensely after the Olympics as she did before because of her new tight schedule.
Carly Patterson has done the talk show circuit and has made numerous guest appearances since the Athens Games. Although
some hoped that she would return to full training to defend her all-around gold, Patterson decided in 2006 she would not
plan to participate in the 2008 Olympic Games and would retire from Gymnastics. Her coach said in a TV interview, "It's hard
to top an All-Around Gold."
She has kept busy 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.
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, and the future
of her professional singing career is unknown. She is currently still searching for a record deal.
On August 29, 2006, she started her appearance on the television 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 were voted off each week. 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 will
continue to sing. She also encouraged the audience to continue voting for the remaining celebrities because the cause was a charity.
For more information, visit her
profile page on the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique website.
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