Carly Patterson

Carly Patterson
Patterson in 2009
Personal information
Full nameCarly Rae Patterson
Country represented United States
Born (1988-02-04) February 4, 1988 (age 36)
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.
HometownAllen, Texas, U.S.
Height5 ft 0 in (152 cm)
Weight97 lb (44 kg)
DisciplineWomen's artistic gymnastics
LevelSenior Elite
Years on national team2000–2004[1] (USA)
ClubWorld Olympic Gymnastics Academy
Head coach(es)Evgeny Marchenko
Assistant coach(es)Natasha Boyarskaya
ChoreographerTatiana Shegolkova
Eponymous skillsPatterson: Double Arabian Dismount (balance beam)
Retired2006
Medal record
Event 1st 2nd 3rd
Olympic Games 1 2 0
World Championships 1 1 0
American Cup 2 0 0
Total 4 3 0
Event 1st 2nd 3rd
All-Around (OG/WC) 2 2 0
Uneven Bars (OG/WC) 0 0 0
Balance Beam (OG/WC) 0 1 0
Vault (OG/WC) 0 0 0
Floor Exercise (OG/WC) 0 0 0
Total 2 3 0
Women's artistic gymnastics
Representing  United States
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 2004 Athens All-around
Silver medal – second place 2004 Athens Team
Silver medal – second place 2004 Athens Balance Beam
World Championships
Gold medal – first place 2003 Anaheim Team
Silver medal – second place 2003 Anaheim All-around
American Cup
Gold medal – first place 2003 Fairfax All-around
Gold medal – first place 2004 New York All-around
AwardsLongines Prize for Elegance

Carly Rae Patterson (born February 4, 1988)[2] is an American singer, songwriter and former artistic gymnast.[2] She was the all-around champion at the 2004 Olympics, the first all-around champion for the United States at a non-boycotted Olympics, and is a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame. Patterson frequently joins radio segments on 1310 AM and 96.7 FM The Ticket in Dallas Fort-Worth.

Gymnastics

Patterson began gymnastics after attending a cousin's birthday party at a Baton Rouge gymnastics club (Elite Gymnastics) in 1994.[3] She was coached there by former Israeli Olympian Yohanan Moyal.[4] She started competing internationally in 2000, when she was 12 years old.

2000–2003

In 2000, Patterson participated in the Top Gym Tournament in Belgium and won the silver medal in the all-around and the bronze on balance beam. The next year, at the 2001 Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, she was ranked second in the all-around before the final rotation but missed three landings on the floor exercise and finished seventh.

Patterson became the U.S. junior national all-around champion in 2002. She then began her senior career by winning the 2003 American Cup, where she was the youngest competitor, having just turned 15. However, she was forced to sit out the 2003 U.S. National Championships, which would have been her first Nationals as a senior, because of a broken elbow.

Although she could not compete in Nationals, Patterson successfully petitioned to the 2003 World Gymnastics Championships in Anaheim, California. There, she earned the all-around silver medal, becoming the first American woman to medal in a World Championships all-around since Shannon Miller in 1994. She also helped the United States earn the team gold medal, a first for the American women.

2004

Patterson again won the all-around at the American Cup in 2004, a performance she dedicated to her coach Evgeny Marchenko's mother, who had died just days before the competition. Later that year, she became co-national champion with Courtney Kupets. She also won the floor exercise at the National Championships and placed second on balance beam.

At the Olympic Trials, Patterson fell off the balance beam on both days of competition, dropping her to third place. However, her performances at a subsequent national training camp were strong enough for her to make the Olympic team.

Olympic Games

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Patterson finished first overall in the preliminary round and qualified for the all-around and balance beam finals. The United States, including Patterson, struggled in the team final: She under-rotated her vault, stubbed the low bar with her foot on the uneven bars, and had several wobbles on balance beam and a lunge forward on her dismount. She later admitted to being distracted after a rushed start on vault, with her coach saying, "The beginning of the competition was stressful. It set the tone."[5] The U.S. women, the reigning world champions, settled for silver.[5]

In the individual all-around, Patterson narrowly defeated three-time world all-around champion Svetlana Khorkina of Russia. After scoring lower than usual on the vault (9.375), Patterson was stronger on her last three events, scoring 9.575 on the uneven bars, 9.725 on the balance beam, and 9.712 on the floor exercise. She became only the second American woman to win an Olympic all-around gold medal, and the first to do so in a non-boycotted Olympic Games. (Mary Lou Retton won the title at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. But because those Games were boycotted by the Soviet Union, Retton did not face the Soviet gymnasts who consistently dominated the sport during that period, accounting for five of the eight Olympic all-around champions before 1984 and nine of the ten previous world all-around champions.)[6][7]

On August 23, Patterson competed in the balance beam event final, where she received a score of 9.775 and won the silver medal behind Cătălina Ponor of Romania.

Post-Olympics

Soon after the Olympics, Patterson was diagnosed with several bulging discs in her lower back that had gone unnoticed. She announced her intention to take time off from the sport to rehabilitate her back, but she officially retired in 2006 without ever participating in another major competition. She recalled the decision in a 2009 interview, saying, "I started having some back issues, and honestly, my doctor was like, 'Carly, you really need to stop if you want to be able to walk when you get older.' ... So I retired and moved on to singing."[8]

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

In December 2011, she was featured on the TV show Hollywood at Home.[9]

Eponymous skill

Patterson has one eponymous skill listed in the Code of Points.[10]

Apparatus Name Description Difficulty[a]
Balance beam Patterson Arabian double salto forward tucked G
  1. ^ Valid for the 2022-2024 Code of Points

Competitive history

Year Event Team AA VT UB BB FX
Junior
2000 American Classic 13 6
U.S. Classic 3rd place, bronze medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 6
U.S. National Championships 4 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 4
2001 Goodwill Games 7 5
Pule Int'l Junior Cup 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 3rd place, bronze medalist(s)
U.S. Classic 1st place, gold medalist(s) 5 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s)
U.S. National Championships 3rd place, bronze medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s)
2002 Gymnix Int'l 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s)
Jurassic Classic 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s)
Pacific Alliance Championships 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s)
TJ Maxx Int'l Challenge 1st place, gold medalist(s)
USA-Mexico Dual Meet 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 3rd place, bronze medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 3rd place, bronze medalist(s)
USA-UKR-BRA Friendly 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s)
American Classic 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 5 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s)
National Elite Podium Meet 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s)
U.S. Classic 1st place, gold medalist(s) 4 3rd place, bronze medalist(s) 7 2nd place, silver medalist(s)
U.S. National Championships 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 3rd place, bronze medalist(s)
Senior
2003 American Cup 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 3rd place, bronze medalist(s)
Pacific Challenge 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 5 3rd place, bronze medalist(s) 5
Anaheim World Championships 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s)
2004 American Cup 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s)
Pacific Alliance Championships 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s)
U.S. National Championships 1st place, gold medalist(s) 5 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s)
Olympic Trials 3rd place, bronze medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s)
Athens Olympic Games 2nd place, silver medalist(s) 1st place, gold medalist(s) 2nd place, silver medalist(s)

Music

Carly Patterson
OriginAllen, Texas, U.S.[citation needed]
GenresRock, pop
InstrumentVocals
Years active2007–present
LabelsMusicMind Records

Patterson first expressed interest in becoming a professional singer in a March 2005 interview. 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".

Celebrity Duets

On August 29, 2006, she started her appearance on the show Celebrity Duets. The program was a reality competition show executive produced by Simon Cowell. 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 15, 2006, during the results show, Patterson was eliminated from the competition (singing 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.

Recording

On February 4, 2008, Patterson signed a recording contract with MusicMind Records, a Chicago-based label. Her single "Temporary Life (Ordinary Girl)" was released on iTunes on March 25, 2008. Her debut album Back to the Beginning was scheduled for release August 5, 2008. However, the CD was not released until more than a year later, on August 25, 2009, and in the interim, Patterson released another single, "Time to Wake Up", on iTunes on February 19, 2009.

On September 10, 2008, a remixed version of Patterson's "Temporary Life (Ordinary Girl)" was played on the Bobby Bones Show. The mixed version featured the new artist Captain Caucasian, a pseudonym for Bobby Bones.

Patterson's song "Here I Am" was featured on the second season of the ABC Family series Make It or Break It, which focused on the lives of teen gymnasts striving to make it to the Olympic Games.

Personal life

On January 21, 2012, Patterson became engaged to strategy consultant Mark Caldwell.[11] They married on November 3, 2012, in Dallas, Texas. They have three children.[12]

Honors and awards

Patterson was chosen for the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2009.[13] She was inducted to the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2024.[14]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Carly Patterson" (PDF). USA Gymnastics. June 17, 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 20, 2011. Retrieved August 23, 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Fact Sheet: Carly Patterson" (PDF). USA Gymnastics. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 20, 2011. Retrieved July 18, 2016.
  3. ^ "Gold Medalist Carly Patterson to Headline Gymnastics Championship". Big 12 Sports. March 11, 2016. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
  4. ^ "Carly Patterson". tmz.com.
  5. ^ a b Boeck, Greg (August 17, 2004). "Romania wins gold in women's gymnastics, U.S. All-Round silver". USAToday.com. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
  6. ^ "Gymn Forum: World Championships Results". gymn-forum.net. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  7. ^ "Gymn Forum: Olympic Games Results". gymn-forum.net. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  8. ^ Carly Patterson Interview — 2009 Visa Championships. usagymnastics.org, YouTube.com, August 18, 2009.
  9. ^ "Hollywood at Home - TV Guide". TVGuide.com. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  10. ^ "2022-2024 Code of Points Women's Artistic Gymnastics" (PDF). International Gymnastics Federation. pp. 143, 210. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 12, 2021. Retrieved January 22, 2022.
  11. ^ "Carly Patterson gets engaged". USA Gymnastics. January 30, 2012. Archived from the original on August 10, 2022. Retrieved July 31, 2012.
  12. ^ VanHoose, Benjamin (February 16, 2021). "It's a Boy! Olympic Gymnast Carly Patterson Caldwell Welcomes Son Pearson Philip". PEOPLE.com. Retrieved June 29, 2021.
  13. ^ Carly Patterson Chosen for Gymnastics Hall of Fame Archived February 7, 2009, at the Wayback Machine SI.com, February 3, 2009
  14. ^ Ivanov, Christian (May 19, 2024). "Four gymnastics legends inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame". intlgymnast.com. Retrieved May 20, 2024.