McKayla Maroney was one of USA Gymnastics’ stars at the London Olympics, and she figured to be a big star in Rio as well. But due to a series of health problems that have emerged after London, and though she denied she would retire back in October, she has officially announced her retirement from gymnastics today.
“I don’t want anybody to ever think that McKayla is retiring. I don’t even want people to use that word,” Maroney said in a GymCastic podcast interview from October that was published Wednesday. “The only difference is I’m not competing anymore.”
She won a silver medal in the vault and a team gold medal at the London Olympics, but even then she started to have many injuries. Maroney suffered a concussion before those games, and also dealt with a broken right big toe and a fractured shin. The toe injury was so serious that she was told after surgery, “You probably will never wear heels again, let alone do gymnastics.” She has also fractured her left tibia during an uneven bars dismount.
“I thought that somebody in the crowd shot me in the leg,” Maroney said in a 2014 Inside Gymnastics video interview. “When your tibia fractures, it’s the loudest bone that breaks in the body. So I heard a gunshot, and it wasn’t a gunshot. It was my leg snapping, my tibia snapping. It didn’t even hurt.”
Three of the five women who were Olympic champions for the USA in 2012 have all retired from international gymnastics, with Kyla Ross and Jordyn Wieber both preceding Maroney in retirement.
Maroney is ineligible for gymnastics in college because she turned pro before the London Olympics. She has said that she’ll be pursuing a career in music, and wanted to be in Rio to cheer on her former teammates. Despite winning gold with the US as a team, she was perhaps better known for finishing second in the vault at the 2012, giving her a silver medal and spawning the riotous “McKayla Maroney is not impressed” meme.
