Photograph Courtesy of Shannon Miller Lifestyle
As America’s most decorated gymnast, Shannon Miller can relate to those competing at the Visa Championships, June 7 through 10 at Chaifetz Arena. “At this point in their careers, this is everything,” says the Missouri native. “While I understand that mentality, they should understand that life will go on.”
Her words may sound cliché, but they come from hard-won perspective: At age 35, Miller’s experienced enough for two lifetimes. By 23, she’d already retired—twice. (In fact, while trying to stage a comeback, one of her final performances was in St. Louis in 2000.) She finished her career with seven Olympic medals and having led the Magnificent Seven to gold in the 1996 Olympics. Miller was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame twice, as both an individual and a team member.
So what’s it like to finish a storied career at an age when most people would be finishing college? “It is a little weird,” she says. “That’s the double-edged sword of winning a gold medal—you trained your entire life to get it, and then what do you do afterward?”
Miller earned a law degree from Boston College, and in 2009, she had a son and launched her own fitness company. Then, last January, she was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer. Miller applied the lessons she’d learned in gymnastics to endure nine weeks of chemotherapy. “I knew it was going to be a battle, and I really relied on those lessons—especially the goal-setting,” she says. “Sometimes, that goal was simply to get out of bed and get dressed, and that was a great day.”
Today, Miller is cancer-free and offers words of encouragement to cancer survivors and gymnasts alike. Her advice: “In this moment, you have to stay focused.”
