Johnson eager to compete
CHICAGO (AP) – Shawn Johnson was standing in the hotel lobby, waiting for a ride to training, when she felt a familiar rush of excitement and adrenaline.
Just like that, the last three years faded away. The shredded knee, the thousands of agonizing hours in the gym, the doubts – none of it mattered any longer.
“That in itself was reward enough for the past year of training, getting back into shape and getting back into it because it was that feeling again,” she said Friday. “I feel like Shawn Johnson the competitor and the girl from Beijing. It was really exciting.”
Johnson returns to competition Saturday night for the first time since winning four medals at the Beijing Olympics, including gold on the balance beam. She may only do two events, beam and uneven bars, at the qualifier for next months U.S. championships, and is trying to keep expectations – her own and everyone elses – realistic.
Still, every day brings her that much closer to next summers London Olympics, a goal she feared was out of reach not that long ago.
“This isnt my goal, its next year,” Johnson said. “If I constantly focused on being perfect at this competition or the next one, then you get too overwhelmed with the expectations of people watching. Whereas if you continue to tell yourself this is just the beginning, this is just the first step, were working for next year not this year, that helps.”
Johnson needed time away from gymnastics after Beijing, where she also won silvers in the all-around, team competition and floor exercise. She won “Dancing With the Stars,” carried the Olympic torch before the Vancouver Games and crisscrossed the country making commercial appearances.
Only 16 in Beijing, she talked about coming back for London. Would even drop by her old gym whenever she was home in Des Moines. But elite gymnastics leaves little room for anything else, and Johnson was having too much fun being a “normal” teenager.
Until she blew out her knee.
Johnson tore the ACL, MCL and meniscus in her left knee, as well as her hamstring, during a January 2010 ski trip to celebrate her 18th birthday. Her first thoughts after the accident were of gymnastics, making her realize she wasnt done with the sport.
When she left the doctors office, she headed straight to the gym, where she and longtime coach Liang Chow began plotting out her comeback.
“We do have limitations and thats the biggest test, for me and for her, to deal with that knee injury,” Chow said. “Were not talking about four years. Were talking months ahead. We have to be really smart and know shes achieving the maximum now.”
The first challenge was for Johnson to get back in gymnastics shape.
Gymnastics requires equal doses of physical strength and precision, and the only way to perfect Olympic-caliber routines is through hundreds and hundreds of hours of training. Take just a month or two off, and you may as well be starting from scratch. Johnson had been gone more than a year.
Once she started getting her skills back, Johnson wanted to push even harder. But Chow was adamant about protecting her knee, even sending her home or to the pool if he thought shed been doing too much.
By November, however, shed made enough progress to earn an invitation to the monthly training camps at the Karolyi ranch outside of Houston. Three months later, she was back on the national team.
“I have good days and bad days,” said Johnson, who doesnt wear a brace or any tape on the knee. “I tweaked my knee a little this week before I came so thats thrown a little roadblock in the training, but its getting better.”
While Johnson may only do two events Saturday, she has routines ready on all four events and hopes to do the all-around at nationals. Shes doing the same vault she did in Beijing, still one of the hardest in the world, and her routines on beam and bars are set.
Floor exercise is the unfinished product, because of her knee, and Johnson plans to add more difficulty before London.
“It gets stronger each day,” she said. “Im almost there.”
The goal this year is to make the U.S. team for the world championships in October in Tokyo, the main qualifier for London. That would get Johnson back in front of international judges and establish her as a factor for next year.
For now, though, shell settle for that old adrenaline rush.
“I texted my friend and I was like, Man, Ive missed this feeling,” she said.
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