Courtney McCool | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Full name | Courtney Lynn McCool-Griffeth | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Country represented | United States | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | April 1, 1988 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Hometown | Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Residence | Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Discipline | Women's artistic gymnastics | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Level | Senior International Elite | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Years on national team | 2001–2004 (USA) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Club | Great American Gymnastics Express | |||||||||||||||||||||||
College team | Georgia Gymdogs | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Head coach(es) | Suzanne Yoculan (3 years) Jay Clark (1 year) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Assistant coach(es) | Jay Clark (3 years) Julie Clark (1 year) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Retired | April 24, 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
|
Current position | |
---|---|
Title | Assistant Coach |
Team | LSU Tigers |
Conference | SEC |
Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
2016–2017 | Texas Woman's University (Assistant coach) |
2018–2019 | Arkansas Razorbacks (Volunteer asst.) |
2020–2021 | Utah Red Rocks (Volunteer asst.) |
2022–present | LSU Tigers (assistant coach) |
Courtney Lynn McCool-Griffeth (born April 1, 1988) [1] 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. [1]
From 2007–2010, McCool competed for the University of Georgia. [2] In that time, the team won three NCAA national titles. [3] She is currently an assistant coach and choreographer for the LSU Tigers team. [4]
McCool was the runner-up in the junior division of the 2003 National Championships and won a silver medal on vault at the 2003 Pan American Games. [1] The following year, her first as a senior international elite, she was the runner-up at the American Cup and the all-around champion at the Olympic Test Event in Athens. [1] [5] She was the only gymnast at the Test Event to qualify for all four event finals,[ citation needed ] and she won a silver medal on vault and bronze on the uneven bars. [1] She then placed fourth in the all-around at the National Championships [1] [6] and second at the Olympic Trials, [7] earning a spot on the Olympic team. [8] [9]
At the Olympics, McCool competed all four events in the qualification round, but faltered on beam and floor and was excluded from the team finals lineup. [10] [11] The United States team won the silver medal behind Romania. [12]
After the Olympics, McCool joined the T.J. Maxx Tour of Olympic Champions, a nationwide gymnastics exhibition tour. [13] However, after finding out that the tour would not be stopping in her hometown, Kansas City, she joined the Rock 'N Roll Gymnastics Challenge, a rival tour, for its Kansas City show. [14] T.J. Maxx officials said they had not given McCool permission to do so, and dropped her from the rest of the tour. [15] [16]
Late in 2004, it emerged that McCool had been suffering from Kienbock's disease, a wrist condition that required surgery and prevented her from performing in further post-Olympic exhibitions. [17]
McCool earned a full scholarship to the University of Georgia beginning in the 2006–07 school year. In her freshman season, she helped the team win its third straight national title, scoring an event high of 9.95 on beam at the 2007 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships in Salt Lake City. [2] At the 2008 Championships in Athens, Georgia, McCool won the floor exercise and contributed to Georgia's fourth consecutive title. [2] In 2009, Georgia won a fifth straight title, and McCool was named an All-American on balance beam, where she scored her first 10.0. [2]
McCool performed the following routines in 2004:
Vault (Start Value: 9.7): 1½-twisting Yurchenko
Uneven bars (SV: 9.9): Kip, cast handstand (KCH); stalder shoot to high bar; KCH; underswing to blind turn + Khorkina; KCH; Gienger; KCH 1/2 + giant 3/2 (Dawes) + Tkatchev; KCH; giant 1/1 + shootover to handstand + underswing shoot to high bar; KCH; giant + giant + double layout dismount.
Balance beam (SV: 10.0): Front handspring mount (McCool); front aerial + back handspring stepout + layout stepout + layout stepout; switch leap + Onodi; sheep jump; wolf jump 1/1; switch side leap; full turn with leg above horizontal + Popa; roundoff + triple twist dismount.
Floor exercise (SV: 10.0): Popa + tuck jump 2/1; roundoff + back handspring + 2½ twist + front 1/1; double turn with leg above horizontal + wolf jump 1/1; switch ring leap + Gogean; triple full; front double twist + front layout.
McCool's balance beam mount, a front handspring with a two-foot landing, is named after her in the International Federation of Gymnastics' Code of Points because she was the first to perform it at the Olympics. [18]
2004: "Peter Gunn Theme"
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.
Amy Yuen Yee Chow is an American former artistic gymnast who competed at the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics. She is best known for being a member of the Magnificent Seven, which won the United States' first team gold medal in Olympic gymnastics. She is also the first Asian-American woman to win an Olympic medal in gymnastics.
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.
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.
Vanessa Marie Atler is an American former elite gymnast. She is the 1997 U.S. national all-around champion, the 1998 Goodwill Games gold medalist on the floor exercise and vault, and a four-time national champion in the individual events of vault, balance beam, and floor exercise. She is also the 1996 junior national all-around and floor champion. At the 1999 American Cup, Atler became the first female gymnast to successfully perform a Rudi vault.
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). As of 2024, Silivaș is the last gymnast, male or female, to have accomplished this feat.
A handspring is an acrobatic move in which a person executes a complete revolution of the body by lunging headfirst from an upright position into an inverted vertical position and then pushing off from the floor with the hands so as to leap back to an upright position. The direction of body rotation in a handspring may be either forward or backward, and either kind may be performed from a stationary standing position or while in motion.
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.
Sabina Carolina Cojocar is a Romanian retired international elite artistic gymnast and singer. She became a world gold medalist with the Romanian women's gymnastics team in 2001 and is also a five-time medalist at the 2000 Junior European Gymnastics Championships.
Daiane Garcia dos Santos is a retired artistic gymnast. She is the 2003 world champion on the floor apparatus. On doing so, she became the first black gymnast to ever win an event at the World Championships as well as the first Brazilian and South American to win the competition. She represented Brazil at the 2004, 2008, and 2012 Summer Olympics. Widely regarded as the most powerful tumbler of her generation by critics and fellow competitors alike, the gymnast had two eponymous skills added on the FIG code of points after being the first woman to compete them at international championships. Dos Santos I, an F rated element, and Dos Santos II, an H rated element on the 2017–2020 COP.
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.
Mo Huilan is a retired Chinese gymnast who competed at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. She was one of China's most successful gymnasts in the 1990s. She was known for performing routines of exceptional difficulty and technique, but also for inconsistency.
Kim Gwang-suk is a North Korean female gymnast who competed in the 1992 Summer Olympics. She is known for both her exemplary uneven bars work and for her involvement in one of the most prominent age falsification scandals in gymnastics in recent years.
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.
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.
Shawn Johnson East is an American former artistic gymnast. She is the 2008 Olympic balance beam gold medalist and team, all-around and floor exercise silver medalist. Johnson is also the 2007 all-around World Champion, and a five-time Pan American Games gold medalist, winning the team titles in 2007 and 2011, as well as titles in the all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam in 2007.
Qiao Ya is a retired Chinese artistic gymnast. She was the 1994 Asian Games All-Around Champion, a finalist on balance beam at the 1994 and 1995 World Gymnastics Championships, and competed at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta – where she placed 11th in the individual All-Around and 4th with the team during Team Finals.
Yana Vladimirovna Demyanchuk is a Ukrainian artistic gymnast who won gold on the balance beam at the 2009 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships.