Julissa Gomez
| Julissa Gomez | |
|---|---|
| — Gymnast — | |
| Full name | Julissa D'Anne Gomez |
| Country represented |
 United States
|
| Born |
November 4, 1972 San Antonio, Texas |
| Died | August 8, 1991 (aged 18) Houston, Texas |
| Discipline | Women's artistic gymnastics |
| Level | Senior international |
| Club | Karolyi's; GAGE |
| Former coach(es) | Béla Károlyi; Marta Károlyi; Al Fong |
Julissa D'anne Gomez (November 4, 1972 – August 8, 1991) was an American gymnast whose rapid rise through the ranks of elite gymnastics in the mid-1980s was cut short by a vaulting accident in 1988 that left her a quadriplegic. Her injury sparked major changes to the vaulting discipline of women's gymnastics with the goal of preventing such serious injuries.
Gomez was born in San Antonio, Texas, the younger of two daughters born to a pair of former migrant farm workers from Laredo, Texas. Her parents, mother Otilia and father Ramiro, worked their way up from their farm working days to become a teacher and a welder, respectively, and struggled to keep their family together while giving 10-year-old budding gymnast Julissa a chance to train with renowned gymnastics coach Béla Károlyi in Houston. At the 1986 U.S. Championships, she placed fourth in the all-around in the junior division and won a place on the U.S. National Team. By 1987 she was representing the United States in international meets. Especially strong on the uneven bars and balance beam, Gomez was considered a legitimate contender for the 1988 U.S. Olympic team.
In mid-1987, Gomez, wanting to move further up the rankings and reportedly frustrated with Károlyi's sometimes abusive training methods, decided to leave the Károlyis. After briefly training at US Acrosports in Webster, Texas, Gomez's search for a new coach led her to select Al Fong, who was the trainer of another up-and-coming gymnast eager to make the 1988 Olympic team, Christy Henrich. Though her parents had vowed to keep the family together no matter where Julissa's career took her, they decided that Ramiro would move with Julissa to Blue Springs, Missouri, where Fong's gymnastics club, Great American Gymnastics Express (GAGE), was located while Otilla would remain behind until Julissa's older sister Kristy finished school for the year.
In May 1988, several months before the Olympics, she traveled with her coach to Tokyo, Japan, to compete in the World Sports Fair. In an eerie foreshadowing of events to come that during the qualifying rounds of the competition, Gomez reportedly spoke about the Soviet gymnast Elena Mukhina, who had been paralyzed in an accident in 1980 just a few weeks before the Moscow Olympics. Mukhina's former coach, Mikhail Klimenko, was reportedly in attendance at the meet.
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Wikipedia