When Alicia Sacramone '10 finished her floor-routine at the World Gymnastics Championship earlier this month, her mother, Gail, screamed. Then she cried.
She screamed because the nearly flawless routine clinched the gold medal for the United States, and because her daughter would begin her professional career on the highest of notes. She cried because of what her daughter went through to get there.
"I don't think any kid on the team went through what Alicia did," said Gail, her voice cracking over the phone.
As Sacramone's teammates mobbed her, Gail thought of her daughter's experience three years ago. Instead of competing in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Australia, Sacramone watched them from her living-room couch, her back in a brace, because she had performed poorly and hurt herself in the Olympic trials earlier that year. As she sulked, she thought about leaving gymnastics forever.
"It was like there was a death in the family," Gail said.
But three years later, a wiser, stronger and more mature Sacramone put those memories behind her. At the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, on Sept. 5, she proved that she was the leader of the U.S. team and became a bit of a gymnastics legend with a performance that the Associated Press called as "clutch" as "any shot taken by Michael Jordan."
The American team had a comfortable lead ahead of second-place China when two U.S. gymnasts uncharacteristically slipped on the beam, putting their gold medal in jeopardy. But Sacramone, who at 19 is the oldest on the team, gathered her teammates together and calmed them down.
"I told them, 'Guys, we still got this. Don't let these two mistakes get us down,' " she said.
Then, Sacramone went out and followed her own advice. As the last American gymnast to perform the floor routine - the last event of the competition - she knew a solid routine would be good enough to win.
So she put some chalk on her hands - "They were a little sweatier than normal," she said - and said a prayer. Then, she went out and bounced, flipped and danced her team to victory.
When she landed the routine, "I knew it my heart it was good enough to win," she said.
The world championship - the United States' second overall and first on foreign soil - secured the Americans a spot in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Sacramone also won individual medals in the floor exercise (silver) and vault (bronze). Though the Olympic squad hasn't been named, Sacramone is a virtual lock for the team given her recent performance.
Since she quit the Brown gymnastics team earlier this month to pursue a professional career, Sacramone will now have more time to train specifically for the Olympics.
"I want to get my gold back on the floor," said Sacramone, who won gold in the event in the 2005 World Championships.
Brown gymnastics Head Coach Sara Carver-Milne said she was disappointed that Sacramone quit the team, but said she always knew it was a possibility because of Sacramone's talent. As far as Beijing, she believes Sacramone will shine.
"Oh, gosh," Carver-Milne said when asked of her potential. "Alicia, I would say, is the most reliable person on the U.S. team right now. She's tremendously talented. She's so much more experienced right now at the world level as far as handling the pressure and hitting the counts."
For now, life is good for Sacramone. Despite over an hour each day spent commuting to practice in nearby Burlington, Mass., she is enjoying life as a student. Though she's now a professional, she isn't forgetting about her former Brown teammates.
"I told them, 'I'm going to get you some sweet hook-ups,' " with her endorsements, she said.
