Here's what former gymnast Kerri Strug has been up to since she stuck the unforgettable vault that won her team the 1996 Olympic gold
Strug kicked off her gymnastics career early on — beginning her training at the age of three. She entered her first competition in the sport as an eight-year-old. In 1991, she moved to Houston to train with the notable Romanian gymnastics coach Béla Károlyi.
The following year, she competed as the youngest member of the entire US Olympic team in the Barcelona Games. There, she won a team bronze medal. Károlyi retired after the games, but Strug continued on with the Dynamo Gymnastics Club in Edmond, Oklahoma. Her career was put on pause when she suffered a severe injury to her back in 1994, after losing control on the uneven bars and falling to the ground.
Source: USA Gymnastics
After intense rehabilitation, Strug recovered in time to compete at the 1994 World Championships. When Károlyi came out of retirement the following year, she teamed up with him once more. Under his coaching, Strug saw her second Olympic berth by making the US Women's Olympic team — popularly called the Magnificent Seven. The Atlanta Games were her last foray into international competition.
Source: USA Gymnastics
After healing from her injury, Strug joined "The Magic of MGM, an Ice Capades Production." She didn't do any skating herself, but instead performed two gymnastics routines — one inspired by the film "Rocky" and the other in the finale of the show. She told the Los Angeles Times that she appreciated the creative outlet that the ice show provided, saying, "I'm excited to be in a situation where I can have a lot more fun in my sport [and] get the crowd involved."
Source: Los Angeles Times
Following the 1996 Games, Strug enrolled in UCLA. The transition proved somewhat difficult. "I was used to somebody controlling every move, telling me where to be and what to do and how to do it," Strug told Sports Illustrated. "The first couple months were sort of tough." She worked as the gymnastics team manager and joined Kappa Alpha Theta before transferring to Stanford University, where she earned a master's in social psychology.
Source: Sports Illustrated
After graduating, Strug went to work as an elementary-school teacher at Tom Matsumoto Elementary in San Jose, California. Strug told the Chicago Tribune that going into education was a way of giving back after so many years of focusing on her dream. She said that only a few of her students knew about her past as an Olympian. "They know I like gymnastics, and sometimes they will ask, 'Can you do a flip for us?'"
Source: Chicago Tribune
Eventually, Strug made the decision to switch up her career and continue working with children outside of education. In 2003, she moved to DC to become a staff assistant with the White House Office of Presidential Student Correspondence as a presidential appointee. She went on to appear with fellow former gymnast Mary Lou Retton at the Republican National Convention.
Source: Sports Illustrated
Strug eventually moved to the Treasury Department. In 2005, she joined the US Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Source: Reuters
Strug hasn't returned to the sport of gymnastics, aside from teaching at a handful of clinics and camps. Still, she hasn't totally left the world of athletics. In her spare time, Strug ran marathons in Boston, Houston, New York City, and Chicago. She also worked as an artistic gymnastics correspondent for Yahoo during the 2004 Athens Games. She told The New York Times that it was quite a change from gymnastics: "I had to not only train my muscles, but also my mind. But it was a new challenge."
Source: The New York Times
Today, Strug is a program manager for the US Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. She is married to lawyer Robert Fischer and has two children, Tyler and Alayna. "If you told me I'd be working as a program manager in the OJJDP back when I was in Atlanta, I would've laughed," Strug told Sports Illustrated. "But at the same time I think I also knew I wasn't going to be a gym coach or owner. It was important for me to prove to myself and to others that I can be successful in other arenas as well."
Source: Sports Illustrated
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