Carly Patterson

[MRR]

Funny this topic comes up: I rewatched 2004 Scam a week ago. The lack of artistry and choreography among those U.S. WAG (sans McCool, who had her own issues) was stunning, especially with 2020ne eyes.

Patterson is a low-wattage OGM, though I don’t find her offensive. She had more charisma off the floor than on, but her work was generally clean, she showed confidence and mastery of her skills, and of course the beam dismount was a highlight. AFAIK she is still the only gymnast to compete a RO-BHS prior to the Patterson.

As for the other events, the prelims DTY was a one-off, bars was fine for not being a bar worker, and floor had nice acro with dance that was bargain basement. Her lightness on beam was my favorite quality of hers, and stood out even with a relatively bare bones interior. You barely heard a sound.

 

[rue_des_plantes]

Carly’s Yurchenko postflight was a mess well before the elbow injury. Prelude to Bross, now that I think about it.

There may be some indication she was more comfortable with the double, but given the spread of actively offensive 1.5s she did over the years and how her DTY was never a “set it and forget it” routine a la McCallum/DiCello/Wong, I don’t see how vault was an overt asset for her. Athens prelims just looks like a Suni moment.

 

[Puffin]

It’s an interesting point about the change in her floor between 03 and 04. She did sell it a lot better when she was younger. That, coupled with the way her musical efforts went afterwards makes me agree with @cats she’d probably outgrown it.

Yes - the thing that came to mind in 04 was that her fx looked “junior-ish” for an Olympic champ

 

[rlayt]

This song wasn’t bad.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

I like her album. It’s not amazing or award-winning, but it’s not offensive and it brings me back to being a teen. In hindsight, I’m glad she had the opportunity.

 

[irichluck21]

It’s definitely a shame, I just think if we’re going to factor in injuries we have to do it for everyone. So a healthy Annia Hatch would potentially have been throwing an Amanar in Athens for example, and outscored Carly and Sveta’s 9.512. If Khorkina hadn’t been held together with string by then she’d probably have been better at beam and floor, Memmel could have been an AA medal challenger too, etc etc.

There is no reason Hatch and Bhardwaj couldn’t outscore Patterson with DTYs. They just made mistakes in qualifications.
Sadly Marta made the error of loading up VT and it didn’t pan out.
While Hatch was great for an individual medal, had Schwikert been on the team she could have been a secure 3rd score on bars and would have brought a high score on FX and possibly beam. One thing about Tasha was that she had no issues getting her leaps and jumps credited.

 

[glamafonic]

I’m pretty much in agreement with the majority. Generally boring and inoffensive, but loved her on beam.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

There is no reason Hatch and Bhardwaj couldn’t outscore Patterson with DTYs. They just made mistakes in qualifications.

Yes, that’s my point. It took a specific and unusual sequence of events for Carly to be the joint 3rd highest on 1 vault after prelims, even with pretty much the best DTY she ever did. The ones in the 9.3s she did in Athens are more representative.

 

[irichluck21]

But relative to the rest of the World, Patterson’s DTY was right up there especially compared to the Romanians.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Patterson’s usual quality of DTY was in fact one of the worse ones we saw in Athens. Her average score across the Games, which flatters her given that the prelims effort was a one off, is lower than Ponor’s and even Sofronie’s. She was ahead of much of the rest of the world simply because of successfully competing a DTY, because most people weren’t doing that in 04, but the DTY itself does not compare too well with the others being done at the time. Hit DTYs were usually going higher than mid 9.3s.

 

[LunaCaelum]

Well not quite, as a junior she did compete with seniors in 2001 at the Goodwill Games and would have won the all around had she not had the 7.1 meltdown on floor exercise.

Wasn’t this the competition where she had the flu?

 

[crdubb17]

I will always have a soft spot for Carly, as she was probably one of the first girls I was amazed by. Who remembers her big debut at the 2001 American Team Cup? She had huge skills on beam and moved in a way we hadn’t really seen before. She had some ups and downs all that quad, so it was a major triumph to see her pull out the all around title in Athens. I wish we could have seen more, but she did what she came to do.

 

[irichluck21]

Wasn’t this the competition where she had the flu?

Possibly, it has been 20 years so I can’t recall from memory.

 

[Passion]

I remember her being sick at the GWG, I think they talked about in the broadcast.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

Yes, I remember that being the case.

 

[rlayt]

Yes I remember it too.

 

[IratePanda]

As a junior, she was adorable and preternaturally good on beam. As a senior, she was solid and inoffensive. I think she was the rightful AA winner in 2004, if only because Khorkina was a clapped-out cadaver by then.

I also give Carly props for settling into normal life pretty soon after she retired–none of the famewhore D-list wanna-be celebrity/influencer crap for her.

 

[MaryClare]

Did she ever become a dental hygienist

 

[rlayt]

She did not. I think she made too much money to feel like she could slog her way through school after she grew up. I also respect her for her restraint in not doing MLM or celebrity IG or YouTubing herself for money.

 

[Hatsumomo]

To be fair, most of social media as we know it today didn’t exist until 2006 (Twitter and YouTube. Instagram didn’t come until 2010). Facebook was around in 2004, but you needed a .edu email address to register. Making money and continuing fame via social media wasn’t much a thing until the mid-2010s. When she wasn’t a super-well-known AA champ even right after her win with numerous endorsement deals and whatnot, it would be hard to sell an IG or YouTube channel almost 20 years after her last competition.

As it was, she did do a short-lived reality singing competition show.