Kelly Garrison

Kelly Garrison
— Gymnast ♀ —
Full name	Kelly Garrison-Funderburk
Alternative name(s)	Kelly Garrison Kelly Garrison-Steves (former)
Country represented	United States
Born	(1967-07-05) July 5, 1967 Altus, Oklahoma
Residence	Edmond, Oklahoma
Training location	Norman, Oklahoma
Height	1.55 m (5 ft 1 in)^[1]
Weight	48 kg (106 lb)
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Level	International Elite (1980–88)
Years on national team	1980–88
Gym	University of Oklahoma
College team	Oklahoma Sooners (1987)
Head coach(es)	Becky Switzer

Kelly Garrison-Funderburk, formerly known as Kelly Garrison-Steves (born July 5, 1967), is a retired American artistic gymnast. An elite gymnast for eight years, she represented the United States at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.^[2] In addition to her Olympic experience, she participated in the 1983, 1985 and 1987 World Championships.

Early life

Garrison was born on July 5, 1967 in Altus, Oklahoma. She started gymnastics training when she was 7 years old, in 1974. In 1985, at the age of 18, she graduated from Altus High School.^[3]

Elite Career

1980–84: Career beginnings

In 1980, at the age of 13, she moved up to Junior International Elite; she competed at the 1980 U.S. Junior National Championships and won the gold medal on the Balance Beam. She competed at the USGF International Invitational and took the bronze of the Floor Exercise. Later, in 1982, Garrison won the all-around at the 1982 U.S. Olympic Festival, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Moving up to the senior division in 1983, Garrison finished twelfth at the 1983 U.S. World Trials competition. However, she was included on the U.S team for the 1983 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. She contributed to the team's seventh-place finish, but didn't qualify to any individual event finals.^[4]

In 1984, Garrison competed at the American Classic (finishing 9th) and the U.S. Classic in Niagra Falls, New York – a twelfth-place finisher in the all-around.^[5] However, she didn't compete in any other competitions during the remainder of the season and, as a result, wasn't a contender for the 1984 Olympics.

1985–87: Further elite success

In 1985, she finished fifth at the Arthur Gander International and was third in the all-around at the 1985 Swiss Cup. At the 1985 U.S. National Championships, she won another gold medal on the Beam. She placed second at the U.S. World Trials and made the U.S. team for the 1985 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, in Montreal, Canada. She helped contribute to the team's sixth place, and as an individual, she was eighteenth in the all-around competition.^[6]

1986 wasn't one of the best years in Garrison's elite career. She competed at the 1986 Olympic Festival in Houston, Texas, but placed 4th in both the all-around and on the vault, 5th on floor exercise (where she made a few notable mistakes), and 6th on the uneven bars. At the 1986 U.S. National Championships, she placed 39th in the all-around. She also went to the World Cup event in Beijing, China and placed 13th.

In 1987, she placed 5th in the all-around at the 1987 National Championships and made teams for both the 1987 Pan American Games and the 1987 World Championships. At the 1987 Pan American Games, Garrison won gold medals in the team and balance beam competitions and placed 3rd in the all-around. At the 1987 World Championships, she contributed to the team's 6th place finish.

1988: Olympian

In 1988, she placed 2nd behind Phoebe Mills and won the bronze on beam and floor at the 1988 National Championships. Her finish at Nationals qualified her to the 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials in Salt Lake City, Utah. She placed 2nd behind Phoebe Mills, and she secured a spot on the 1988 U.S. Olympic Women's Gymnastics Team.

1988 Olympic Games

Kelly Garrison competed at the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. She competed on all four events in both the compulsories and optionals. She contributed 38.975 in the compulsories and 38.85 in the optionals (Her score on floor exercise was dropped as it was the lowest score and teams were allowed to drop their lowest score on each apparatus), giving her a total of 77.825 and helped her team place 4th behind teams from the Soviet Union, Romania, and East Germany. She also qualified for the all-around and balance beam finals, and placed 16th and 7th respectively.

Garrison was also involved in a controversy that mean't the difference between 3rd and 4th place involving a scarcely-used rule. During her Uneven Bars routine in the compulsory rounds of the competition, the team alternate, Rhonda Faehn pulled the springboard but crouched beside it and remained on the podium until Garrison finished her routine. At the time, coaches and/or alternates were not allowed to stay on the podium when an athlete was performing an exercise at an Olympic competition. Despite not competing, Faehn was caught by the East German judge, Ellen Berger, and as a result, the US team was deducted 0.5 tenths of a point, and put the team in 4th place behind the East Germans by a mere 0.3 tenths of a point. Had Faehn left the podium immediately or hadn't been penalized, or the team filed an inquiry to get the lost points back, they would've won the bronze medal ahead of East Germany. Had this happened, it would have also been their first gymnastics medal in the team competition (men or women) and their first gymnastics medal overall on the women's side in a fully attended Olympics (disregarding the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics which were boycotted by the Soviet Union and the East Germans) had the controversy not been visited in the first place. Regardless of this penalty, the team was still happy of their 4th place finish and both Garrison and teammate, Melissa Marlowe, expressed it in an interview after the competition with Ahmad Rashād. The president of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) at the time, Yuri Titov apologized to the Americans after the compulsories as well, regarding the controversy.

References

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