Full name | World Champions Centre Elite |
---|---|
Nicknames | WCC |
Sport | Artistic gymnastics |
Founded | 2014 |
Based in | Spring, Texas |
Owner | Ron & Nellie Biles |
Head coach | Laurent Landi Cecile Canqueteau-Landi |
Manager | Zachary Francis |
Members | Simone Biles Jordan Chiles Olivia Greaves Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos Zoe Miller Joscelyn Roberson Tiana Sumanasekera |
World Champions Centre (WCC) is an American artistic gymnastics academy, located in Spring, Texas. It is home to Olympic champion Simone Biles and is owned by her family. [1]
After the 2013 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, Aimee Boorman, the longtime coach of Simone Biles, was looking to leave Bannon's Gymnastix. As a result, Biles' mother, Nellie, who co-owned a chain of fourteen nursing homes around Texas, suggested that the family build a gym. [2] World Champions Centre originally opened in March 2014 in a temporary center before moving in September to a warehouse. It now[ when? ] features a 29,000-square-foot (2,700 m2) gym floor. [3] The gym opened to the public in May 2016. [4]
The inaugural Biles Invitational was held in 2018 at World Champions Centre. [5]
Starting in 2020, the event served as a qualifying meet for the Nastia Liukin Cup. [6]
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.
Anastasia "Nastia" Valeryevna Liukin is a Russian-born American former artistic gymnast. She is the 2008 Olympic all-around champion, a five-time Olympic medalist, the 2005 and 2007 World champion on the balance beam, and the 2005 World champion on the uneven bars. She is also a four-time all-around U.S. national champion, winning twice as a junior and twice as a senior. With nine World Championships medals, seven of them individual, Liukin is tied with Shannon Miller for the third-highest tally of World Championship medals among U.S. gymnasts. Liukin also tied Miller's record as the American gymnast having won the most medals in a single non-boycotted Olympic Games. In October 2011, Liukin announced that she was returning to gymnastics with the hopes of making a second Olympic team. Liukin did not make the 2012 Olympic team and retired from the sport on July 2, 2012.
Valeri Viktorovich Liukin is a Soviet-born Kazakh-American retired artistic gymnast turned gymnastics coach. As a competitor for the former Soviet Union, Liukin was the 1988 Olympic champion in the team competition and individually on the horizontal bar, and Olympic silver medalist in the all-around and the parallel bars.
The World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA) is a two-facility gymnastics club located in Frisco and Plano.
Alicia Marie Sacramone Quinn is a retired American artistic gymnast. She won a silver medal with the United States team at the 2008 Summer Olympics and is the 2005 World Champion on floor exercise and the 2010 World Champion on the vault. With a total of eleven World Championship and Olympic medals, Sacramone is the fourth most decorated U.S. female gymnast, behind Simone Biles (30), Shannon Miller (16), and Nastia Liukin (14).
The American Cup, formerly known as the AT&T American Cup through a sponsorship arrangement that ended in 2018, was an elite senior level international gymnastics competition that had been held in the United States from 1976 to 2020. It was usually held in February or March of each year. In 2011, it became part of the International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG) Artistic Gymnastics World Cup series. With the exception of 2005, it has been exclusively an all-around competition. Past champions include Olympic all-around champions Nadia Comăneci, Mary Lou Retton, Vitaly Scherbo, Paul Hamm, Carly Patterson, Nastia Liukin, Gabby Douglas, and Simone Biles. The final American Cup took place on March 7, 2020, in Milwaukee.
The Nastia Liukin Cup is an annual artistic gymnastics competition held in the United States and hosted by Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin.
Simone Arianne Biles Owens is an American artistic gymnast. She is the most decorated gymnast in history, and she is widely considered the greatest of all time. Her seven Olympic gymnastics medals are ninth-most of all time and tied with Shannon Miller for the most by a U.S. gymnast. She has won more Gymnastics World Championships medals than anyone else: 30, primarily gold.
Madison Taylor Kocian is a retired American artistic gymnast. On the uneven bars, she is one of four 2015 world champions and the 2016 Olympic silver medalist. She was part of the gold medal-winning team dubbed the "Final Five" at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and was a member of the first-place American teams at the 2014 and 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020, where she was a member of its NCAA women's gymnastics team.
Alexandra Claire McMurtry is an American former artistic gymnast. She is the 2013 Nastia Liukin Cup champion and the 2017 NCAA Champion. She competed in NCAA gymnastics for the Florida Gators and was the 10th person in NCAA history to record a Gym Slam.
Jordan Lucella Elizabeth Chiles is an American artistic gymnast. She represented the United States at the 2020 Summer Olympics and won a silver medal in the team event. She was a member of the team that won gold at the 2022 World Championships. Individually, she is the 2022 World vault silver medalist and floor silver medalist. She has been a member of the United States women's national gymnastics team since 2013.
Ashton Taylor Locklear is a retired American artistic gymnast from North Carolina. She was a member of the gold medal-winning United States team at the 2014 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, and is a two-time national champion on the uneven bars. Locklear was an uneven bars specialist and was an alternate for the 2016 Summer Olympics U.S. gymnastics team, the Final Five.
The United States women's national artistic gymnastics team represents the United States in FIG international competitions.
Morgan Elizabeth Hurd is an American artistic gymnast and a five-time member of the United States women's national team (2016–21). She is the 2017 World all-around champion and balance beam silver medalist and the 2018 World all-around bronze medalist and floor exercise silver medalist. She has won four medals at the USA Gymnastics National Championships during her senior career and is a two-time American Cup champion. She was a member of the gold-medal winning American teams at the 2018 World Championships and the 2019 Pan American Games.
The Final Five was the United States women's team in artistic gymnastics that won the team event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. It was the United States' third gold medal in the event and second outside the United States. The five members of the team were Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez, Madison Kocian, and Aly Raisman, with MyKayla Skinner, Ragan Smith, and Ashton Locklear serving as the three alternates. After the team event, Biles won a gold medal in the individual all-around event, the vault, and on floor exercise and won a bronze on the balance beam, while Raisman won silver medals in the individual all-around, and on the floor exercise, where she was the defending champion, Hernandez won silver on the balance beam, and Kocian won a silver in the uneven bars. The previous team to medal in every event, including the team and individual all-around, was the Unified Team at the 1992 Games; the only previous U.S. team to do so was at the 1984 Games.
Kara Eaker is a retired American artistic gymnast. On the balance beam she is the 2018 Pan American and 2019 Pan American Games champion and a two-time United States national silver medalist. On floor exercise she is the 2019 Pan American Games silver medalist and the 2018 Pan American bronze medalist. She was a member of the American teams that won gold at the 2018 and 2019 World Championships, the 2019 Pan American Games, and the 2018 Pan American Championships. She was an alternate for the 2020 Olympic team.
Sunisa "Suni" Lee is an American artistic gymnast. Lee is the 2020 Olympic all-around champion and uneven bars bronze medalist, the 2019 world championship silver medalist on the floor and bronze medalist on uneven bars. She was a member of the teams that won gold at the 2019 World Championships and silver at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Olivia Greaves is an American artistic gymnast and a member of the United States women's national gymnastics team (2018–Present).