Miller Returning for More Olympic Glory

When the frenzy of the Atlanta Games finally subsided, Shannon Miller needed a break.

She had spent most of her life in a gym, working and pushing her body beyond exhaustion, but wanted to know what else was out there besides gymnastics.

So she learned how to figure skate. She went scuba diving. She tried skydiving. She went to college. She even got married.

“I had a blast,” said Miller, the most-decorated American gymnast ever, with seven Olympic medals and nine from the world championships.

But a funny thing happened along the way. After all the years of sweat and sacrifice, she discovered she still loved gymnastics.

“When I went back to the gym, I was just going to start training again to be on the post-Olympic tour. By the second week, it was like, ‘OK, this is home, this is natural. I really love being there.’ I was excited just as much as I was in 1996. That’s when I knew.”

Miller announced in January that she was coming back with the intention of making the U.S. team for the Sydney Olympics in September. This weekend, she joins 16 of the country’s best gymnasts for the monthly pre-Olympic training camp at Bela Karolyi’s ranch outside of Houston.

Amy Chow, Dominique Moceanu and Jaycie Phelps, fellow members of the first U.S. women’s gymnastics team to win gold, also are attending the camp.

“She has a fire in her eye I haven’t seen since 1992,” said Steve Nunno, Miller’s longtime coach.

“Right now Shannon has a grace, a confidence level that is so far beyond what she’s had in the past,” he said. “It’s almost like a glow. It’s like, ‘I know who I am.”’

Miller wasn’t sure how Nunno would react when she told him she wanted to come back. After all, his life had changed, too, after the Magnificent Seven’s victory in Atlanta. Nunno and his wife, Laurie, have three children younger than 4, and training for another Olympics takes a huge chunk of his time.

But she knew she had to ask.

“I thought she was out of her mind,” Nunno said. “Been there, done that. She was married, happy. She was out of shape. All of those put together. My question, like anybody else’s, was why?”

Her explanation was simple: She still felt she had something to give, that she could help the Americans win a medal.

“You have to respect that,” Nunno said. “Who am I to tell her not to try?”

Their first task was getting Miller back into competitive shape. At 23, her body is very different than it was four years ago. She’s only grown about an inch, but she’s gained weight.

With only nine months until Sydney, Nunno developed an intensive training program that would get her in shape and develop her skills. Her day begins with a workout session; she spends two days in the gym, two days weight training and two days running.

Then it’s back home for a few hours, which she spends working or doing interviews. Or, in the last few weeks, packing, since she and her husband, Chris Phillips, are in the process of moving.

She heads back to the gym in the afternoon for a 4 1/2-hour training session, then comes home and rests.

“Everyone has made a lot of sacrifices in order to get me where I need to be, so I can’t let them down. Nor do I want to,” she said. “The way I know that is that even on the hardest days, on the days I walk into the gym and can barely move, I still know this is what I love doing and this was the right decision.”

Though she isn’t home as much as she used to be, her husband is enjoying this time, too, Miller said. When she and Phillips started dating, she was wrapping up her last few pro competitions and was only training a few days a week.

Now he gets to see the Shannon Miller that little girls around the country grew up idolizing.

“He didn’t have any idea what to expect, but he was really supportive,” she said. “I think he just saw that light in my eye that hasn’t really been there in a while.”

Though 23 is almost ancient in gymnastics these days, Miller said she’s more powerful than ever before. Nunno estimates she’s about 80 percent, and will peak just in time for the Olympic trials and the Sydney Games. And there’s no doubt in Nunno’s mind that she’ll make her third Olympic team.

If she does, she’ll go with a deeper appreciation for the games and everything she did to get there.

“A lot of the choice of me taking some time off was about finding what else was out there. You kind of have this fear, ‘Is gymnastics the only thing I can do?’ You take time off and you find out there’s a whole other world out there,” she said.

“Eventually I’ll do things other than gymnastics. But it’s always going to have a special place in my heart.”