Older and wiser, Alicia Sacramone returns to gymnastics with eye on worlds and 2012 Olympics

Two years after Beijing, Sacramone competing again

CHICAGO — Olympic silver medal in hand, Alicia Sacramone left the gym after Beijing with no intention of coming back. Her body was beat up and, at 20, she was ready for a life that wasn’t dictated by a training schedule.

Yet two years later, here she is again, competing in her first gymnastics meet since the Beijing Games with an eye toward making the world championship team — and maybe even another Olympics.

“As I healed up and started working out and getting back into shape, I realized gymnastics isn’t something you can do forever,” Sacramone said Friday. “If I’m still lucky enough to have the ability to keep going, I might as well tough it out for a couple more years and see what I can do.”

Beijing all-around champion Nastia Liukin and runner-up Shawn Johnson were the stars of the U.S. team during the last Olympic go-around, but Sacramone was its backbone. She won seven medals at the world championships from 2005 to ‘07, including the 2005 title on floor, and was a cornerstone of the ‘07 world champions.

Her routines were done with a style and sass the folks in Vegas would envy, and her oversized personality gave the Americans swagger as they ruled the world in the lead-up to Beijing.

But untimely injuries and uncharacteristic mistakes — including two big ones by Sacramone — left the Americans with the silver medal while China won gold. Sacramone fell off the balance beam during team finals, when teams must count the scores of all three gymnasts on each apparatus, and fell during the floor exercise.

“We did what we could with what our circumstances were, and I’m so proud of all the girls. In my mind, we did a great job,” Sacramone said. “Granted, it wasn’t my best performance. I hold myself to a higher standard, and I should have done better than that. I’m a better athlete than that.

“I think that’s another part of the reason I came back, to show that I can do better. And to prove to myself that I can do better, not just to everybody else.”

Sacramone first started toying with coming back last summer. Though she had moved to California with her brother after Beijing, she still kept up with coach Mihai Brestyan.

When she told friends what she was thinking, however, the reaction was always the same.

“Everybody I told at first just laughed. ‘Right, that will be the day,’” Sacramone said.

But she moved back home to Winchester, Mass., in September, and started working out with Brestyan. After a year away, the idea was simply to get back in gymnastics shape.

Before she knew it, she was vaulting again.

“I went from zero to 60 in like four seconds,” she said, laughing.

The transition was smooth, so much so that Sacramone felt as if she’d only taken a few days off rather than more than a year. But the difference in training, well, she may as well be a new gymnast.

At 22 (she’ll be 23 in December), Sacramone spends only about three hours a day in the gym. She does physical therapy and dance classes as well, but the shortened training schedule helps spare her body.

“It gives me plenty of time to go to take care of my body, rest. I’m doing online credits to keep getting credits toward graduation, so it gives me time to be able to do those things,” she said. “And I’m not getting sick of going to practice because I’m not in the gym all day long, every day.”

Sacramone will compete on vault and balance beam at Saturday’s meet, a qualifier for next month’s national championships. Even just doing her 2008 skills (she plans to upgrade next year), she could be a huge boost for the Americans at this fall’s world championships, the first step in qualifying for the London Olympics.

While Kayla Williams is the reigning world champion on vault, it’s traditionally one of China and Romania’s strongest events. Another monster score, preferably two, will ensure the Americans will keep pace with their chief rivals. Sacramone is also working on floor exercise.

“She’s ready to go,” Brestyan said. “Physically, she’s ready. She’s worked hard and she’ll be OK. She’ll be very helpful to the team.”

Regardless of what her birth certificate says.

Gymnastics has a reputation for chewing up and spitting out athletes before they reach college — or earlier. Age falsification has long been a problem, and China had to provide original passports, ID cards and family registers after the ages of several members of its 2008 squad were questioned.

But younger, Sacramone insists, isn’t necessarily better.

“Everybody has such opinions of what we do and how old we have to be to be great,” she said. “As long as you’re dedicated, you’re in shape, you’re healthy, you can do anything you put your mind to.

“I’m old,” she said, laughing, “and I’m happy about it.”