Julissa D'Anne Gomez (November 4, 1972 – August 8, 1991) was an American
gymnast
Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, sh ...
whose rapid rise through the ranks of elite gymnastics in the mid-1980s was cut short by a
vaulting
In architecture, a vault (French ''voûte'', from Italian ''volta'') is a self-supporting arched form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while rin ...
accident in 1988 that left her a
quadriplegic
Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is defined as the dysfunction or loss of motor and/or sensory function in the cervical area of the spinal cord. A loss of motor function can present as either weakness or paralysis leading to partial or t ...
. She eventually died from her injury. She was being coached by
Al Fong, and had previously been coached by
Bela Karolyi
Bela may refer to:
Places Asia
*Bela Pratapgarh, a town in Pratapgarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India
*Bela, a small village near Bhandara, Maharashtra, India
*Bela, another name for the biblical city Zoara
* Bela, Dang, in Nepal
* Bela, Janakpur, ...
.
Her injury sparked major changes to the vaulting discipline of women's gymnastics with the goal of preventing such serious injuries.
Career
Gomez was born in
San Antonio
("Cradle of Freedom")
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, map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = United States
, subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State
, subdivision_name1 = Texas
, s ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, the older of two daughters born to a pair of former migrant farm workers from Laredo, Texas.
Her parents, mother Otilia and father Ramiro, worked their way up from their farm working days to become a teacher and a welder, respectively, and struggled to keep their family together while giving 10-year-old budding gymnast Julissa a chance to train with renowned gymnastics coach
Béla Károlyi
Béla Károlyi (; born September 13, 1942) is an ethnic Hungarian Romanian-American gymnastics coach. Early in his coaching career he developed the Romanian centralised training system for gymnastics. One of his earliest protégés was Nadia C ...
in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
.
["Tales from the vaults"]
Rebecca Seal, ''Guardian Unlimited'', 4 December 2005. At the 1986 U.S. Championships, she placed fourth in the all-around in the junior division and won a place on the U.S. National Team. By 1987, she was representing the United States in international meets. Especially strong on the
uneven bars
The uneven bars or asymmetric bars is an artistic gymnastics apparatus. It is made of a steel frame. The bars are made of fiberglass with wood coating, or less commonly wood. The English abbreviation for the event in gymnastics scoring is UB or ...
and
balance beam
The balance beam is a rectangular artistic gymnastics apparatus and an event performed using the apparatus. Both the apparatus and the event are sometimes simply referred to as "beam". The English abbreviation for the event in gymnastics scoring i ...
, Gomez was considered a legitimate contender for the 1988 U.S. Olympic team.
In mid-1987, Gomez, wanting to move further up the rankings and reportedly frustrated with Károlyi's sometimes abusive training methods,
decided to leave the Károlyis. After briefly training at US Acrosports in Webster, Texas, Gomez's search for a new coach led her to select Al Fong, who was the trainer of another up-and-coming gymnast eager to make the 1988 Olympic team,
Christy Henrich
Christina "Christy" Renée Henrich (July 18, 1972 – July 26, 1994) was an American artistic gymnast. Her death from anorexia nervosa at age 22 led to major reforms in the way women's gymnastics is covered on television and in the news media ...
.
Though her parents had vowed to keep the family together no matter where Julissa's career took her, they decided that Ramiro would move with Julissa to Blue Springs,
Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
, where Fong's gymnastics club, Great American Gymnastics Express (GAGE), was located while Otilia would remain behind until Julissa's younger sister Kristy finished school for the year.
Injury and death
In May 1988, several months before the Olympics, Gomez traveled with her coach to
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, to compete in the World Sports Fair. During the all-around competition, Gomez qualified for the vault finals. However, observers had noticed her struggle with the apparatus over the months leading up to the competition, including her former coach Béla Károlyi, past and present teammates, and even her present coach Al Fong. Gomez' technique on the extremely difficult
Yurchenko vault had been described as shaky at best, and Gomez was unable to perform the vault with any consistency during practices, sometimes missing her feet on the springboard.
A teammate from Károlyi's,
Chelle Stack, later stated, "You could tell it was not a safe vault for her to be doing. Someone along the way should have stopped her."
However, Julissa's coaches insisted that she needed to continue training and competing the Yurchenko vault in order to achieve high scores.
During warmups for the final, held on May 5, 1988, Gomez continued to practice the Yurchenko. As she raced toward the vault on one of her practice runs, her foot slipped off the springboard and she slammed headfirst into the vaulting horse at high speed. The resulting impact instantly paralyzed her from the neck down. A subsequent accident at a Japanese hospital, in which she became disconnected from her
ventilator
A ventilator is a piece of medical technology that provides mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs, to deliver breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently. Ventilators ...
,
resulted in severe
brain damage
Neurotrauma, brain damage or brain injury (BI) is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating t ...
and left her in a
coma
A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...
. Gomez's family cared for her for three years before she succumbed to an infection and died in August 1991 in Houston.
Aftermath
Gomez's accident stands as one of the most serious to occur in artistic gymnastics, and helped prompt changes in the sport. In 1989, the
International Gymnastics Federation
The International Gymnastics Federation (French: Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, FIG) is the body governing all disciplines of competitive gymnastics. Its headquarters is in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was founded on July 23, 1881, in ...
decided to increase vaulting safety by allowing U-shaped springboard
mats, traditionally utilized in practice to give all gymnasts a greater margin of error in preflight, to be used during competitions.
The mat is now mandatory: the 2006 ''
Code of Points'' specifies that performing a
Yurchenko-style vault without the safety mat results in an automatic score of zero.
''Code of Points''
at the official website of the International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG):Section 8.4, "Specific Apparatus Deductions (A Panel), page 34.
In 2001, the traditional horse was completely phased out and replaced by a larger, more stable vaulting table to provide gymnasts with additional safety.
See also
* Elena Mukhina
Elena Vyacheslavovna Mukhina (russian: Елена Вячеславовна Мухина; first name sometimes rendered "Yelena", last name sometimes rendered "Muchina"; 1 June 196022 December 2006) was a Soviet gymnast who won the all-around t ...
, a Soviet gymnast paralyzed in a tumbling accident in 1980 while attempting the now-banned Thomas salto
The Thomas salto is an extremely difficult and dangerous move performed during the floor exercise in artistic gymnastics. It is named after American gymnast Kurt Thomas.
Technical details
The Thomas salto consists of a 1 ½ salto backward in a ...
.
* Christy Henrich
Christina "Christy" Renée Henrich (July 18, 1972 – July 26, 1994) was an American artistic gymnast. Her death from anorexia nervosa at age 22 led to major reforms in the way women's gymnastics is covered on television and in the news media ...
, an American gymnast who was told she was fat by an international gymnastics judge in 1989 and pushed by coaches to lose weight while continuing to train until constant dieting led to anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa, often referred to simply as anorexia, is an eating disorder characterized by low weight, food restriction, body image disturbance, fear of gaining weight, and an overpowering desire to be thin. ''Anorexia'' is a term of Gr ...
, which contributed to Henrich's death from multiple organ failure less than five years later.
* ''Little Girls in Pretty Boxes
''Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters'' is a 1995 nonfiction book by ''San Francisco Chronicle'' sports writer Joan Ryan detailing the difficult training regimens endured by young women in ...
'', book by Joan Ryan recalling Julissa Gomez's story, along with other gymnasts and figure skaters.
References
External links
Memorial at Gymnastic Greats
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gomez, Julissa
1972 births
1991 deaths
20th-century American women
20th-century American people
American female artistic gymnasts
People with tetraplegia
Sports deaths in Texas
Sportspeople from San Antonio
U.S. women's national team gymnasts