Al Fong

Last updated

Al Fong (born c. 1953 [1] ) is an American gymnastics coach and owner of GAGE Center, a gymnastics club. [2] Fong coached Julissa Gomez and Christy Henrich, Olympic hopefuls for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, who died after a competition accident and from anorexia, respectively. He has since coached two Olympic silver medalists: Terin Humphrey and Courtney McCool.

Contents

Personal life

Fong is a second-generation Chinese-American, born and raised in Seattle, Washington. He was a gymnast and earned a gymnastics scholarship to Louisiana State University. [1] Fong is married to former Soviet gymnast Armine Barutyan-Fong, who is a gymnastics coach at GAGE Center. Together they have a daughter, Athena. [3]

Career

1970s

Fong graduated from Louisiana State University in 1975, and became a gymnastics coach that same year. In 1979, Fong started his own gym, the Great American Gymnastics Express (also known as GAGE Center), in Blue Springs, Missouri. Fong coached six-year-old future world champion Tammy Pendley in Lee's Summit, Missouri. [1]

1980s and 1990s

In the 1980s, Fong coached Julissa Gomez and Christy Henrich. Gomez died after breaking her neck while performing a Yurchenko vault. Henrich died from complications of anorexia nervosa. After Henrich's death, Fong stopped coaching elite gymnastics and instead taught after-school programs.

2000s

He coached Olympic silver medalists Terin Humphrey and Courtney McCool at his gym, GAGE Center, in Blue Springs. [4] [5] Fong has said his coaching style has changed: "There is no yelling or screaming[...]If anybody who knew me 20 years ago saw this, they'd say 'Bulls----". [4]

At a selection camp for the 2003 World Championships, Humphrey was selected as a second alternate. She was not allowed to practice with the U.S. team. Fong commented that the experience was very painful and said Humphrey should have been selected to compete. [6]

Fong was involved in a scoring controversy concerning the men's all-around competition at the 2004 Athens Olympics when Korean Olympic officials lodged a protest against American gymnast Paul Hamm 's score. [7]

2010s

As of 2019, Fong coached Leanne Wong and Kara Eaker. [8]

Athlete deaths

Julissa Gomez and the Yurchenko vault

Julissa Gomez broke her neck while performing a Yurchenko vault in 1988 during the World Sports Fair in Japan, just before the 1988 Olympic trials. [4] She died as a result of her injuries in hospital. [9] After the accident Fong said: "One thing is certain...Julissa certainly wouldn't want national team members to stop competing, or want me to quit being the coach that I am". [10] After the accident some coaches supported banning the vault entirely, but Fong said that "a lot of the coaches are concerned about the hysteria going on about this vault[...]This could hamper the development of the sport." [11] He said that banning the vault would put the United States even further behind the Soviets and suggested that coaches should teach the vault to gymnasts when they are younger so they will have more time to develop it. [11]

Another one of Fong's gymnasts, Karen Tiereny, cracked the C-1 vertebra in her neck when she landed on her head performing the Yurchenko vault at the U.S. Olympic Festival in 1987. Tiereny decided she would not perform the vault anymore and has said that Fong continued to encourage her to perform it anyway. Fong insists that he did not pressure Tiereny to continue performing the Yurchenko. [12]

Christy Henrich

He coached Christy Henrich, who missed the 1988 Seoul Olympics by .188. Henrich developed anorexia nervosa after a judge told her she was too heavy at 93 pounds to make the Olympic team. As a result of her illness, she was unable to compete after 1990. She retired from the sport in 1991 and died from multiple organ system failure in 1994 at age 22. Fong had stopped coaching Christy in 1989 and has said that he "kicked her out of the gym for her own good" adding that she had lost the strength needed to complete her routines safely. [13] Henrich has said that Fong called her the "Pillsbury Dough Boy", which Fong has denied. [14]

Fong stopped coaching elite gymnastics for a time after Henrich's death. [6] The best gymnasts left his gym and his reputation as a coach was damaged. He taught after-school programs for a time, until he met nine-year-old Terin Humphrey. [4]

Related Research Articles

Tatiana Gutsu, rarely Tetiana Hutsu, is a Ukrainian former artistic gymnast from the Soviet Union and the winner of the all-around title in the 1992 Summer Olympics. She was renowned for performing some of the most difficult routines in the sport. She was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominique Dawes</span> American artistic gymnast

Dominique Margaux Dawes is a retired American artistic gymnast. Known in the gymnastics community as 'Awesome Dawesome', she was a 10-year member of the U.S. national gymnastics team, the 1994 U.S. all-around senior National Champion, a three-time Olympian, a World Championship silver and bronze medalist, and a member of the gold-medal-winning "Magnificent Seven" team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She is also the Olympic bronze medalist on floor exercise from the Atlanta games.

Terin Marie Humphrey is a retired American artistic gymnast. She competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, where she helped the United States team place second and won an individual silver medal on the uneven bars. Humphrey was inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2008 as a member of the 2003 World Championships team, and in 2015 as an individual gymnast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courtney Kupets</span> American artistic gymnast (born 1986)

Courtney Anne Kupets Carter is an American former artistic gymnast. She is a two-time Olympic medalist from the 2004 Olympics, the 2002 world champion on the uneven bars, the 2003 U.S. national all-around champion, and the 2004 U.S. national all-around co-champion. She is also a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. team at the 2003 World Championships.

Maria Olaru is a Romanian former Olympic artistic gymnast. She is an Olympic, World, and European gold medalist with the team. Individually, she was the 1999 all-around world champion and the 2000 Olympic all-around silver medalist. Her best event was the vault on which she medaled at world and continental competitions. Olaru was one of the tallest gymnasts competing in the late 1990s, standing 160 cm. After retirement she became an assistant professor at the Faculty of Sports and Physical Education of the West University of Timișoara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elena Mukhina</span> Soviet gymnast (1960–2006)

Elena Vyacheslavovna Mukhina was a Soviet gymnast who won the all-around title at the 1978 World Championships in Strasbourg, France. Her career was on the rise, and she was widely touted as the next great gymnastics star until 1979, when she broke a leg and missed several competitions. The rushed recovery from that injury, combined with pressure to master a dangerous and difficult tumbling move caused her to break her neck two weeks before the opening of the 1980 Summer Olympics, leaving her permanently quadriplegic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courtney McCool</span> American artistic gymnast

Courtney Lynn McCool-Griffeth is an American former artistic gymnast who competed in the 2004 Summer Olympics. She was coached by Al and Armine Fong of Great American Gymnastic Express.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chellsie Memmel</span> American artistic gymnast

Chellsie Marie Memmel is an American artistic gymnast. She is the 2005 world all-around champion and the 2003 world champion on the uneven bars. She was a member of the United States women's gymnastics team at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.

Kristen Ann Maloney is a retired gymnast from Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, in the United States. She won bronze in the team event at the 2000 Olympic Games. Maloney was also the U.S. senior all-around national champion in 1998 and 1999 and the 1998 Goodwill Games gold medalist on the balance beam.

Julissa D'Anne Gomez was an American gymnast whose rapid rise through the ranks of elite gymnastics in the mid-1980s was cut short by a vaulting accident in 1988 that left her a quadriplegic. She eventually died from her injury. She was being coached by Al Fong, and had previously been coached by Bela Karolyi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yurchenko vault family</span> Type of vault in artistic gymnastics

Yurchenko, also known as round-off entry vaults, are a family of vaults performed in artistic gymnastics in which the gymnast does a round-off onto the springboard and a back handspring onto the horse or vaulting table. The gymnast then performs a salto, which may range in difficulty from a simple single tuck to a triple twist layout. Different variations in the difficulty of the salto lead to higher D-scores. This family of vaults is the most common type of vault in gymnastics and is named after Natalia Yurchenko, who first performed it in 1982.

Christina "Christy" Renée Henrich was an American artistic gymnast. Her death from anorexia nervosa at age 22 led to major reforms in the way women's gymnastics is covered on television and in the news media. She was coached by Al Fong.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samantha Peszek</span> American artistic gymnast

Samantha Nicole Peszek is an American former artistic gymnast. She was a member of the U.S. women's gymnastics team at the 2008 Summer Olympics, which won silver.

<i>Little Girls in Pretty Boxes</i> 1995 nonfiction book by Joan Ryan

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters is a 1995 nonfiction book by San Francisco Chronicle sports writer Joan Ryan detailing the difficult training regimens endured by young girls in competitive sports such as gymnastics and figure skating, published by Doubleday Books. Ryan's material was largely derived from personal interviews with nearly 100 former gymnasts and figure skaters as well as trainers, sports psychologists, physiologists, and other experts, focusing on the physical and emotional hardships young girls endured for the sake of Olympic glory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alabama Crimson Tide women's gymnastics</span> Womens gymnastics program at the University of Alabama

The Alabama Crimson Tide gymnastics is a Division I gymnastics team representing the University of Alabama in NCAA competition. The Tide hosts its home matches in Coleman Coliseum on the university's Tuscaloosa, Alabama campus. One of only eight gymnastics teams to win the national title, the Crimson Tide has won six NCAA championships, ten SEC championships, and an NCAA-record 32 Regional championships. The team is led by first-year head coach Ashley Priess-Johnston, who succeeded Dana Duckworth following the 2022 season.

Sabrina Vega is a retired American gymnast from Carmel, New York. She was a five-time national team member and a member of the United States team that won gold at the 2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. She later competed for the University of Georgia from 2017 to 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyla Ross</span> American artistic gymnast

Kyla Briana Ross is a retired American artistic gymnast and current assistant coach for the Arkansas Razorbacks gymnastics team. She is the first female gymnast to win NCAA, World, and Olympic championship titles.

Ekaterina Vladimirovna Lobaznyuk is a former Olympic gymnast who competed for Russia in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, winning three medals. Her name is sometimes written Ekaterina Lobazniouk.

Carol Michelle "Chelle" Stack is a former gymnast. She competed for the United States national team at the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics. She is currently active as a brevet rated judge at US national gymnastics competitions.

Great American Gymnastics Express, known also as GAGE Center or GAGE, is an American artistic gymnastics academy, located in Blue Springs, Missouri.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Al Fong". www.wagymnasticshistory.com. Retrieved 2019-05-19.
  2. ↑ "Al Fong | Missouri | Gymnastics Simplified". Al Fong. Retrieved 2019-05-19.
  3. ↑ "From Oppression to Training Olympians". The New York Times. Associated Press. 2007-08-26. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-05-19.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "ESPN The Magazine: Al Fong's iron fist". ESPN.com. 2007-09-19. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  5. ↑ Posnanski, Joe (2004-08-17). "At age 16 , McCool finds the cruelness of sport.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)". Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Archived from the original on 2018-02-04. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  6. 1 2 DeArmond, Mike (2004-06-25). "Paring down with gymnastics trials.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)". Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Archived from the original on 2018-02-04. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  7. ↑ DeArmond, Mike (2004-08-25). "Fong places blame for gymnastics flap squarely on Korean officials.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)". Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Archived from the original on 2018-02-04. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  8. ↑ Star, Vahe Gregorian | The Kansas City (8 April 2019). "Wong shines as USA Gymnastics star". The Guam Daily Post. Retrieved 2019-05-19.
  9. ↑ "Tales from the vaults" Rebecca Seal, Guardian Unlimited, 4 December 2005, url = http://www.espn.com/olympics/news/story?id=3027224
  10. ↑ HUDSON, MARYANN (1988-06-25). "The Unthinkable Happens : Gymnast Gomez, 15, in Coma After Suffering Broken Neck During Warmups". Los Angeles Times. ISSN   0458-3035 . Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  11. 1 2 "Is New Vault Lifting Gymnasts Into Danger?". tribunedigital-chicagotribune. 27 June 1988. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  12. ↑ Ryan, Joan (2013-04-03). Little Girls in Pretty Boxes. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN   978-0-307-82855-2.
  13. ↑ Schouwen, Daryl Van (1994-07-28). "Gymnast Fought Losing Battle // Henrich Succumbs to Anorexia, Bulimia". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 2018-02-04. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  14. ↑ Boodman, Sandra G. (1996-07-30). "The Medical Costs of Being Young, Female and the Best". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2018-02-04. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.