1 2

(Enlarge) Gymnast and Wilde Lake High School graduate Elise Ray earned a spot on the 2000 U.S. women's Olympic team, competing in the Sydney Games. (File photo, 2000).

Elise Ray has experience in performing for an audience. As a member of the 2000 United States Olympic women's gymnastics team, Ray had to smile brightly and appear like she was having fun, when in reality both on the floor and behind the scenes the experience was anything but joyous. So it is fitting that for the past year and a half, Ray -- a 2000 Wilde Lake High graduate -- has been performing with the Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas.

"As a gymnast you are completely unaware of the audience, as an artist you have to perform for them," said Ray, who performed in "O" for a year and LOVE, a Beatles-themed show, for six months. "They (Cirque du Soleil) transform you from an athlete to an artist."

Every four years Ray is reminded of her Olympic experience by others, which, she says, is nice.

"I think actually she's honored by it, (that) the community still looks at her as an Olympian," her mother, Ellen Ray said.

Elise is trying to decide whether she wants to join another Cirque du Soleil show, or move onto something else. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2005 with an English degree and would eventually like to become a writer, either as a children's author or a magazine columnist.

"I love to write," she says.

Ray confides that life in Las Vegas is not ideal, though she has found a "great house, great roommates, far enough away from the strip in a normal neighborhood.

"It's such a transient city. It lacks community, lacks culture (and) it can be very lonely."

She acknowledges that she is sometimes tempted to move back to Maryland.

"My parents live there, friends I grew up with . When I come home it's so warm. (But) if I go back there I'll stay there and there are still some things I want to do."

Whether or not Ray continues as a performer in Cirque du Soleil, the year and a half spent performing in Las Vegas did give her an outlet to move on with her life after the tumultuous Sydney games. Much publicized at the time was a controversy in the vault competition. The vault apparatus was inexplicably set five centimeters too low. Ray fell during warm-ups, leaving her shaken for the rest of the gymnastics competition. She finished 13th overall after going into the Games as America's best hope for a medal.

The bigger problem, though, which Ray says was largely swept under the rug, was the coaching situation.

Just before the 2000 Games, Bela Karolyi was named U.S. national team coordinator. Karolyi is known as a whip-cracker whose tactics can be tolerated when things go well, but who can also turn against his team when things go wrong.

Dysfunction ensued between Karolyi and the other coaches, including Kelli Hill, Ray's personal coach, with Karolyi and the national federation and with Karolyi and the gymnasts themselves. At the time, Karolyi even suggested that if he had been on the floor competing, the U.S. would have medaled (the team finished fourth).

Sour memories remain for Ray of what should have been one of the greatest experiences of her life.

"We saw no one, we stayed in the village in a girls dorm, no closing ceremonies, no opening ceremonies ... Very few people knew how bad it was for us (gymnasts). Everything that could have gone wrong did," she said.

Marta Karolyi, Bela's wife, became national coordinator in 2001 and still holds the position for this year's team.

"We were the guinea pig team," Ray says of the 2000 squad.

By the time the vault controversy blew up, Ray and her teammates were nonplussed.

"What else could be thrown at us? It was like, 'Are you serious?'"

Ray does look back fondly on her time with her teammates.

"If there was anything that got us through it, it was each other," she says. "All of us dealt with it by moving on quickly, and we've all moved on. We're all happy girls now," says Ray, who keeps in touch with her former teammates via e-mail.

She's also happy that her family -- parents Ellen and Bill, and older brother Taylor, who served as an Army Ranger in Iraq for a year and a half and is now a government contractor in Washington, D.C. -- was able to join her in Australia and enjoy the true Olympic experience.

"We were really on that general high of being at the Olympics, but you have a child in it, so you also have a sense of accomplishment," Ellen Ray said. "I wish (Elise) would have had more of an Olympic experience ... it was never fun (for her), it was always about competition."

When asked if her family was able to enjoy Australia with her, Ray clarifies, "My family got to enjoy it for me."

After the Olympics, Ray competed for Michigan, which brought a smile back to her face. As a Wolverine, she was a 14-time All-American and three-time NCAA national champion.

"We (Ray and her Olympic teammates) were hesitant to (compete in college), we were so jaded. But it was great to get back to the roots and have fun again."

Ray has even tried her hand at coaching -- with Camp Woodward -- an experience she surprisingly enjoyed and plans to do again.

"I never thought I'd be interested in coaching, but I had a great time," she said.

With unprecedented coverage of the Beijng Games, Ray can't help but remember her Olympic experience, an accomplishment that only the greatest athletes on the planet share. But the emotions are understandably "difficult," as Ray puts it.

"I'm a little mixed. My very first reaction is to not watch it. My interests have gone elsewhere. But I always end up watching it," she says with a laugh.

user comments (0)