Title/Author:
“Chalked Up: Inside
Elite Gymnastics’ Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders and
Elusive Olympic Dreams” by Jennifer Sey
Tags:
Gymnastics, Olympics, women’s
sports
Publish date:
October 23, 2009
Length:
320 pages
Rating:
4 of 5 stars (very good)
Review:
Jennifer Sey was the 1986 U.S. Women’s Gymnastics champion and the road
that she took that eventually led her to this championship was filled with
drama, heartbreak, injury and eventually triumph. Everything that she and her family went
through to get to that pinnacle is chronicled in her memoir “Chalked Up.” It is an honest look at the life of elite
gymnastics, a sport in which many participants retire from the sport before
obtaining a high school diploma.
Sey covers a lot of topics in the book as the title implies. While this
was a book that I found as a bargain book a few years ago, I was intrigued to
finally read this when the actions of a gymnastics coach toward his gymnasts
made recent news. The book read as I
expected considering the nature of the topics and the fact that it was a memoir
by an athlete that has long retired from her sport.
The Parkettes are an elite gymnastics team that trains in Allentown,
Pennsylvania. That is a two hour commute from the Sey’s home in New Jersey, but
between Sey’s obsession to be the best gymnast and her mother’s willingness to
do anything to help her daughter obtain that dream, that didn’t stop them from getting Jennifer a
spot on this team. It is there that her
experiences with debilitating injuries, abusive coaches and eating disorders
begin. She talks about the way coaches demean the gymnasts while the owner
constantly reminds them of how “fat” they are.
How Sey continues to thrive in this environment is something she explains
through the emotions she felt and her constant fear of failure. More than her
competitive drive or her skills, I was taken aback by how freely she was able
to write about her emotions, especially her fears. This passage from a practice session on the
balance beam while a Parkette was one of the most powerful expressions of this
fear: “ The fear never abates. It is
constant, relieved only in the instant I have landed on my feet. It surges again and again and again.
Agitation and fright is my perpetual state of existence. But I ignore it as I
climb back up onto the beam and begin rocking.”
This book received much scrutiny when it was published, including
pushback from some of Sey’s Parkettes teammates. While I read these reviews and comments, I
felt the book was simply an honest assessment by her of her life as a gymnast,
both the good and the bad. It wasn’t the
best written or most powerful memoir I read, but it was a revealing look at the
world of gymnastics that paints a different picture than that shown every four
years during the Olympics telecasts, which is usually the only time many sports
fans watch the sport. It is a book that
is recommended for any reader who wants to learn more about the world these
young girls live in in order to entertain the television viewers around the
world.
Book Format Read:
E-book (Nook)
Buying links:
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