Brandy Johnson

Last updated
Brandy Johnson
Full nameBrandy Johnson-Scharpf
Country representedFlag of the United States.svg  United States
Born (1973-04-30) April 30, 1973 (age 50)
Tallahassee
Discipline Women's artistic gymnastics
Medal record
World Championships
Silver medal icon (S initial).svg 1989 Stuttgart Vault

Brandy Johnson-Scharpf (born April 30, 1973, Tallahassee, Florida) is a retired American gymnast, gymnastics judge, stuntwoman and gymnastics coach. She owns Brandy Johnson's Global Gymnastics in Clermont, Florida.

A member of Brown's Gymnastics club in Orlando, Florida, Johnson made an impressive debut in high-level competition, winning the all-around, vault, floor exercise and balance beam titles at the 1986 Junior Olympics National Championships. The following year, in her first US National Championships, Johnson won the all-around gold medal in the junior division. She also received her first international assignment, the Chunichi Cup in Japan, where she achieved a twelfth-place finish.

During the buildup to the 1988 Olympics, Johnson moved to Houston, Texas, to be coached by Marta and Béla Károlyi. She placed sixth at the 1988 US Nationals and fourth at the Olympic Trials, securing a berth on the US team for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. At the Olympics, Johnson's tenth-place all-around finish was the highest for an American gymnast in the meet. She qualified for an event final on the vault, for which she placed fifth (however, had the competition been held under the New Life rule as in 1989, she would have won the silver medal). She, Kelly Garrison-Steves, and Phoebe Mills were the only U.S. women to qualify for an individual event final.

Johnson opted to continue competing in 1989, returning to Brown's. It was a successful year for her, as she nearly swept the US National Championships, winning the all-around title and every event final, with the sole exception of uneven bars. She also achieved outstanding results as a member of the fourth-place US team at the 1989 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, coming in second on the vault and seventh in the all-around. Her AA placement was, at the time, the highest ever achieved by an American woman at Worlds. Her silver medal was the only one for an American gymnast in the competition. For her contributions to gymnastics in 1989, Johnson was nominated for the James E. Sullivan Award.

Johnson competed well in 1990, placing third in the all-around and winning vault and floor gold at the US Nationals and winning the Olympic Festival AA. She placed 5th AA in the 1990 World cup and was an event finalist on bars, beam, and floor. However, it also marked her last year of elite competition.

Johnson did not qualify for the 1990 Goodwill Games, and refused when USGF asked her to attend as an alternate. When Erica Stokes was unable to compete after sustaining an injury, the USGF asked Johnson to replace her. Johnson refused a second time because she was about to have surgery to remove a screw in one of her toes from a prior injury. The USGF has said that Johnson accused her former coach Bela Károlyi of concealing Stokes' injury to keep Johnson out of the competition. [1]

After retiring from elite gymnastics in 1990, Johnson worked for several years as a stunt double in Hollywood movies, including Bean , the film adaptation of the British television comedy Mr. Bean . She is now married, has one child (her daughter Sydney, who also competes in gymnastics), and is the owner of Brandy Johnson's Global Gymnastics in Clermont, Florida. Johnson also remains involved in the sport as a judge. In 2000, she was inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Sources

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Zmeskal</span> American gymnast

Kimberly Lynn Zmeskal Burdette is an American retired artistic gymnast turned gymnastics coach and the 1991 World All-Around champion. A member of the silver medal-winning U.S. team from the 1991 World Championships, she was the first American woman to ever win the all-around title at the World Championships, as well as the first to win a world championship medal of any color in the all-around. A three-time United States national all-around champion (1990–92), Zmeskal is also the 1992 world champion on both balance beam and floor exercise, and was a member of the bronze medal-winning U.S. team at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, the first U.S. team medal won at a fully attended Olympic Games. She also posted the highest optional all-around score in the qualification round in Barcelona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Svetlana Boginskaya</span> Belarusian gymnast

Svetlana Leonidovna Boginskaya is a former artistic gymnast for the Soviet Union and Belarus of Belarusian origin. She is a three-time Olympic champion, with an individual gold medal on vault from the 1988 Summer Olympics and team gold medals from the 1988 and 1992 Summer Olympics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Béla Károlyi</span> Romanian-American gymnastics coach

Béla Károlyi is an ethnic Hungarian Romanian-American gymnastics coach. Early in his coaching career he developed the Romanian centralised training system for gymnastics. One of his earliest protégés was Nadia Comăneci, the first Olympic Games gymnast to be awarded a perfect score. Living under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Károlyi frequently clashed with Romanian officials. He and his wife defected to the United States in 1981.

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

Dominique Helena Moceanu is a retired American gymnast. She was a member of the gold-medal-winning United States women's gymnastics team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohini Bhardwaj</span> American artistic gymnast

Mohini Bhardwaj is an American retired artistic gymnast who competed at the 1997 and 2001 World Championships and earned a silver medal with the American team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and is a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame. She is the first Indian-American gymnast, and the second Indian-American athlete in any sport, to medal at the Olympics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniela Silivaș</span> Romanian artistic gymnast (born 1972)

Daniela Viorica Silivaș-Harper, is a Romanian former artistic gymnast best known for medaling in every single event at one Olympics, winning six medals at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul. In doing so, she was the fourth female gymnast to achieve this, after Maria Gorokhovskaya (1952), Larisa Latynina and Věra Čáslavská (1968).

Jana Lyn Bieger is an American former gymnast of German descent. She was raised in the U.S. and is a citizen, and competed only for the U.S. At the 2006 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, she won three silver medals. Bieger was an alternate on the 2008 Olympic team.

The Magnificent Seven was the 1996 United States Olympic women's gymnastics team that won the first ever gold medal for the United States in the women's team competition at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The seven members of the team were Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Dominique Dawes, Kerri Strug, Amy Chow, Jaycie Phelps, and team captain Amanda Borden. Miller, Dawes and Chow also won an individual gold, silver and bronze medal respectively in Atlanta. The team is perhaps best known for Strug sticking the landing of a vault to clinch the gold medal while injured.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamie Dantzscher</span> American artistic gymnast

Jamie Annette Dantzscher is an American former artistic gymnast. She was a member of the bronze medal-winning American team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

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.

Hilary Coplin Grivich was an American gymnast and diver. She was a member of the silver-medal-winning American team at the 1991 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships and the 1990 junior national champion in gymnastics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bridget Sloan</span> American artistic gymnast (born 1992)

Bridget Elizabeth Sloan is an American artistic gymnast. She is the 2009 world champion in the all-around, the 2009 United States national champion, and a silver medalist with the American team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lavinia Agache</span> Romanian gymnast

Lavinia Agache is a retired Romanian artistic gymnast. She won 10 medals at major international events, including a team gold medal at the 1984 Olympics and three silver medals at the 1983 World Championships. She is also the 1983 European champion on balance beam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melita Ruhn</span> Romanian artistic gymnast

Melita Ruhn is a retired Romanian artistic gymnast who represented Romania at the 1980 Summer Olympics. She belongs to the German minority in Romania. She won three Olympic medals for Romania and scored a perfect ten for the vault optionals in the team competition of the 1980 Olympic Games. In 1979 she was a member of the first world gold medal-winning team of Romania. She is also an all around and floor world bronze medalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aly Raisman</span> American olympic gymnast and gold medalist

Alexandra Rose Raisman is a retired American artistic gymnast and two-time Olympian. She was captain of both the 2012 "Fierce Five" and 2016 "Final Five" U.S. women's Olympic gymnastics teams, which won their respective team competitions.

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.

Sydney Ashlyn Johnson-Scharpf is an American artistic gymnast and daughter of Brandy Johnson, a member of the 1988 USA Olympic Team.

Erica Stokes is a former United States gymnast. Stokes trained with Bela Karolyi in Houston, Texas.

Dianne Patrice Durham was an American artistic gymnast. In 1983, she won the all-around senior title at the women's US National Championships, becoming the first African American athlete to do so. She was Béla and Márta Károlyi's first elite athlete in the United States, helping establish their coaching credentials outside of the state-sponsored program of their native Romania, and trained with Mary Lou Retton, who called Durham her "best competition". After injuries and competition stipulations prevented her from competing in the 1984 Summer Olympics, Durham retired from competition in 1985. She later ran the Skyline Gymnastics school in Chicago.

References

  1. Brennan, Christine (1990-07-28). "U.S. Soars, Falls Just Short of Soviets". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2018-02-04. Retrieved 2018-02-03.