Olympic gymnast Chellsie Memmel returns to sport after 9-year break: ‘Don’t hold yourself back’

After retiring from gymnastics in 2012, Olympian Chellsie Memmel is back.

After retiring from gymnastics in 2012, Olympic silver medalist and three-time world champion Chellsie Memmel returned to competition Saturday at the U.S. Classic in Indianapolis.

And the 32-year-old gymnast and mother of two came out of retirement with an inspiring message about never being too old to chase something you want because, she said: “No one should be stopping you. Just don’t hold yourself back.”

Saturday, Memmel competed on vault and beam, and after nearly a decade away from competition, she delivered stunning performances, despite falling off the beam for a moment.

“I feel like this is a win,” Memmel told NBC Sports after her day ended. “I didn’t know what to expect, honestly, when I got out on the floor. Was I just going to fall over and faint of nerves? Like, I don’t know. It felt really good.”

“It felt great to start on vault with one of my best vaults of the weekend,” she continued. “Obviously, beam didn’t go as well as I wanted, but I’m happy. I put myself out there, and I couldn’t have asked for a better day.”

Of course, the 2008 Olympic silver medalist was also asked about her comeback, and Memmel took that opportunity to reiterate that “backwards” thinking about what’s often considered too old for competition should be abandoned.

When Nastia Liukin — who won five Olympic medals at the 2008 Games, including the all-around gold — described the comeback as “a true inspiration to so many people.” Liukin asked what motivates Memmel to continue pushing herself training every day, Memmel said:

“I love doing it. And I am not going to get sick of saying this, and I’m not going to stop saying it because that’s really the biggest driving force of just enjoying doing gymnastics. I love doing gymnastics, and there definitely are those hard days.

“But those days are the ones where I’m remembering like, you’re just pushing yourself, you’re having fun, you’re seeing how far you can actually take this when people said you should have retired when you were 20 or when you were 24. ‘You can’t have kids and come back to a sport.’ It’s that kind of thinking, I feel, is so backwards, but that’s what we think is true. And it’s not true.

“And that’s, for me, I just wanted to put that message out to anybody who thought they missed their chance at something, or didn’t get a chance to try it, or wanted to go back to their sport even just for fun. No one should be stopping you. Just don’t hold yourself back.”

If Memmel makes the Olympic team for the Tokyo Games this summer, she would be older than any U.S. Olympic gymnast in the last 60 years, as NBC Sports noted last year.

Read more about Memmel’s comeback at USA TODAY Sports.

[lawrence-related id=1034122,1000578,996130]

[listicle id=1023529]

https://youtu.be/vJh3IRDNRo4