Fierce Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2017 by Aly Raisman

  Cover photo copyright © 2016 Tim Clayton/Getty Images. Cover design by Sasha Illingworth. Photo insert design by Angela Taldone. Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at LBYR.com

  First Edition: November 2017

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Color photos are all courtesy of the Raisman family unless otherwise noted.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952905

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-47270-8 (hardcover), 978-0-316-47267-8 (ebook), 978-0-316-48063-5 (Target special edition)

  E3-20171020-JV-PC

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Supergirls

  Chapter 2: Cartwheels

  Chapter 3: The A Team

  Chapter 4: Getting Serious

  Chapter 5: Meet the Elite

  Chapter 6: The Ranch

  Chapter 7: American Dreamer

  Chapter 8: Worlds Away

  Chapter 9: Pressure Cooker

  Chapter 10: First Taste of Gold

  Chapter 11: Going Pro

  Chapter 12: Lows and Highs

  Chapter 13: The Fierce Five

  Chapter 14: Golden Summer

  Chapter 15: The Number Four

  Chapter 16: A Gold of My Own

  Chapter 17: The Famous Five

  Chapter 18: Dancing Into a New Me

  Chapter 19: Together Again

  Chapter 20: The Return

  Chapter 21: Body Positive

  Chapter 22: The Survivors

  Chapter 23: High Anxiety

  Chapter 24: Doubt

  Chapter 25: The Road to Rio

  Chapter 26: All-Around Confident

  Chapter 27: The Final Five

  Chapter 28: A Silver Lining

  Chapter 29: Balance

  Photos

  The Fierce Guide to Life

  Author’s Note

  Resources for Survivors

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To my parents, whose love and support have made all the difference

  PROLOGUE

  Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

  August 2016

  I’m sitting on the floor of the airy warm-up gym in the Rio Olympic Arena and fiddling with the fraying white rug beneath my feet, grateful for a distraction. The countdown to the 2016 Olympic Games is officially over, but these final minutes of waiting before the women’s gymnastics competition begins are killing me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I cast a glance at my teammates. Like me, they’re staring off into space, each in her own little world. Every now and then we come back to earth for a second, make eye contact, and give one another a little smile of encouragement. We don’t exchange words. After weeks of sharing arduous training sessions, ice-cold recovery sessions, and laughter-filled leotard fittings, we’ve become so close that we don’t have to.

  The sounds of coaches giving last-minute corrections and advice in several languages float across the gym. I couldn’t help thinking that our own warm-up could have gone better. Despite all our careful preparation, there had been errors on bars, falls off the beam, and out-of-bounds landings on floor—all the classic pre-competition jitters. Even national team coordinator Martha Karolyi, usually so full of energy, had seemed a little quiet.

  The announcer’s booming voice breaks into my reverie. “Attention, gymnasts: Please make your way to the hallway to prepare for competition.” We’ve heard these words at practically every meet since we were children, but this time they convey a reality that is thrilling and utterly terrifying at the same time. This is it. All the work I’ve put in all those years, all those repetitions, all those sit-ups and pull-ups, all that chalk and tape—all that will be tested for the next several days, starting right now.

  As usual, Martha wastes no time. “Okay, girls, let’s do this!” she says, her voice brisk and commanding. “We are prepared. Just like practice.” We stand up and fall into line, just like at the beginning and end of each training session. One by one, she gives each of us a nod of approval, projecting reassurance and calm. Watching her, I feel my breathing start to return to normal. If Martha believes we can do it, we can do it. We are ready.

  It’s cold in the dimly lit hallway that connects the warm-up gym to the arena. We line up shortest to tallest: Simone Biles. Laurie Hernandez. Madison Kocian. Gabby Douglas. Me. Barefoot in our patriotic leotards, we wait for our cue. Some of the gymnasts from other countries have cupped their hands to their mouths and are blowing warm air into the palms of their hands. The minutes pass slowly, each one like an hour. I feel like I need to keep moving, do anything to make the time go by more quickly, so I run in place.

  Without warning, the wave of confidence I’ve been riding evaporates and the nerves come rushing back in. My stomach turns and I begin to gag, struggling to regain my calm. I focus on taking deep, slow breaths, even though my heart is pounding and my throat feels like it’s closing up. I can’t believe this moment is finally here. All my hard work will be put to the test.

  Pull yourself together, I tell myself. Remember that you’ve worked so, so hard—you deserve to compete well. I close my eyes and repeat this over and over in my head as I breathe in slow, deep breaths.

  I peer around the dark tunnel in search of Mihai, my coach since I was ten. One of the advantages of having known each other so long is that we can communicate without using words. In this moment, my face tells him I need to see reassurance in his eyes, I need his confidence. Mihai smiles at me. I exhale.

  Next, I look to Martha. She catches my eye and nods her head. Right now, her eyes say, You can do it, Aly. Everything will be okay.

  In the arena, the announcer is talking. Suddenly, like a fuzzy radio signal coming sharply into focus, we hear:

  “The United States of America!”

  As we begin moving forward, there’s a loud roar from the thousands of fans in the stands as they anticipate the entrance of the reigning Olympic team champions. It’s real now. The last thing that registers as we walk out of the darkness is Martha’s voice. She’s yelling in her strong Romanian accent, “Let’s go, girls. It will be a good one!”

  Yes, it will. As I step into the cheerful green arena with its shiny new equipment and white Olympic rings everywhere, I hide my nerves. With my head held high and a genuine smile spreading from ear to ear, I give myself a moment to take it all in. To savor the feeling of a dream as it comes true. I did it. I am one of the five: The Final Five, representing the United States of America on the Olympic stage.

  As we make our way toward the floor exercise, I allow myself to embrace the journey I’ve taken. I picture another Aly, age eight, sitting on my living room floor a foot away from the TV, watching a different team enter a different arena for their own Olympi
c moment. Seeing the US women’s team march in to compete at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta filled me with a passion for gymnastics that would never fade. My smile grows wider, thinking of some eight-year-old out there, who might be watching us right now with a dream growing in their mind. Maybe that kid will know, just like I did, that they will be out here someday.

  From eight years old on, I had dreamed of nothing but this. Of course, I had no idea how improbable that dream was. I had no idea how many years of my life I would dedicate to it, or how hard it would be to get there—and then to get there a second time.

  In those days, the only thing on my mind was how much I loved gymnastics and how badly I wanted to be one of those women, marching into the arena in an American flag leotard, radiating confidence and ready to compete for Team USA.

  The best thing about being a kid with a dream is that it never occurs to you that it might not be possible. As I walk into the Rio Olympic Arena fourteen years later, just for a second, I become that eight-year-old again.

  In this moment, no dream is too big.

  CHAPTER 1

  SUPERGIRLS

  Newton, Massachusetts

  Summer 2002

  Chills of anticipation raced up my spine. Staring at the TV, I bounced up and down on the couch, so excited I could hardly sit still. No matter how many times I watched the tape, it felt like I was seeing it for the first time.

  The crowd inside the Georgia Dome was on their feet and already making a deafening amount of noise as the seven American women filed into the arena to begin the 1996 Olympic gymnastics women’s team final.

  The excitement that greeted the US women’s gymnastics team as they marched briskly toward the uneven bars was the most captivating thing I had ever seen. The air in the arena was so supercharged with electricity that I could feel it in my own living room, through the screen, six years after the fact.

  My journey to Rio really began with those Olympic Games. I was only two years old on that warm July evening in 1996 when the Magnificent Seven (as they came to be known) kicked off a competition that concluded with one of the most dramatic endings in sports history.

  I wasn’t watching that night, but my grandfather was. He knew that my mom, a former high school gymnast, would be interested in seeing the event, so he taped it for her. When he gave her the tape a few days later, my busy mom thanked him, then laid the tape aside and promptly forgot about it.

  She unearthed it on a quiet afternoon at home six years later. I can still see her standing by the VCR in our living room in Newton, Massachusetts, with its dark green leather couch and green and gold carpet.

  The smell of chicken roasting in the kitchen wafted into the room. I was attempting to keep an eye on my two-year-old sister, Chloe, who toddled around while my two-month-old sister, Madison, slept in her portable crib nearby.

  As we waited for my dad to get home from picking up my brother, Brett, from hockey practice, Mom popped the tape into the VCR and stood back with an air of satisfaction.

  “I was going through some old tapes and came across this. I think you’ll like it, Aly,” she said with a knowing smile as she fiddled with the remote.

  Watching TV with my mom was our special time together, and I cherished it. Raising four young children didn’t leave a lot of time for kicking back, but whenever she wasn’t too busy, we would sit down on the couch and pick out a tape to watch.

  Our choice usually involved our favorite sport—you guessed it: gymnastics. Gymnastics wasn’t broadcast as often as the endless stream of football and basketball games, but on the rare occasions gymnastics competitions were televised, we made sure to tape them. I would watch those tapes over and over until I knew all the routines by heart.

  My mom would eventually get tired of yet another screening of a US Championships or an invitational, but I couldn’t get enough. When I wasn’t doing homework or at gymnastics practice, I was parked in front of the TV, watching one of those tapes.

  One day I want to be just like them, I thought, enchanted by the figures flying across the screen. I had already decided that I would be a gymnast when I grew up. Well, either that or a pop star, like Britney Spears, my favorite singer. That sounded good, too.

  As they lined up, the faces of the seven US team members—Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Jaycie Phelps, and Kerri Strug—projected concentration, confidence, and strength. In their American flag leotards, they were my Supergirls. All they were missing were capes.

  The American women had never won an Olympic team gold medal, and in Atlanta, they were considered underdogs to the powerhouse Russian and Romanian teams, who were expected to battle it out for gold. Though the United States managed to finish second in the qualifying rounds, Russia and Romania were still favored to finish ahead of the United States in the final. But on that magical night, lifted by the support of the home crowd and their belief in themselves, their sterling performances surpassed all expectations.

  On the unpredictable uneven bars and precarious balance beam, they were confident and flying high. One near perfect routine followed the next. It seemed like nothing could stop them.

  By the time the final event rolled around, the Olympic team gold medal was within reach. It all came down to Kerri Strug—if she landed one of her two vaults, the Americans would be the Olympic champions for the first time ever.

  On her first attempt, the unthinkable happened: Kerri landed short, and fell to the ground. When she stood up and walked back down the runway, she was limping badly. But she had to do one good vault to clinch gold for the team (at the time, gymnasts were allowed to count the best score out of two vaults. Today, in elite competition, gymnasts only perform one vault).

  Her coach, Bela Karolyi, urged her on from the sidelines. “You can do it, Kerri!” he cried.

  Blocking out the pain, she raced down the vault runway and launched herself into the air. She landed well this time, but immediately raised her left leg in pain. She had to hop sideways to salute the judges, signaling the end of her routine. Then she collapsed onto the mat.

  It could not have been more dramatic. Seeing them standing on that medal podium, hands over their hearts as the US flag was raised over the arena, filled me with eagerness. I was certain I wanted to be standing in their shoes—or more accurately, their leotards—one day.

  The US team’s victory wasn’t the only moment that had me mesmerized. Of all the events—vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise—floor was the one that captivated me the most. It was the only event where gymnasts got to perform to music, allowing spectators a glimpse of their different personalities and styles.

  One gymnast stood out from all the others. Her name was Liliya Podkopaeva, and at first glance you would have thought she was a ballerina. In her dark green velvet leotard with its delicate row of rhinestones edging the neckline and with her brown hair swept into a neat bun, the seventeen-year-old Ukrainian carried herself like she was taking the stage in a grand theater.

  She flew across the equipment, flipping, leaping, twirling, and making it all look effortless. Her floor routine was sheer magic. Heels tucked squarely into a corner of the mat, she began by sweeping her arms over her head in a graceful arc before rising high up on her toes and taking off. Liliya’s masterful performances on all events in Atlanta earned her the Olympic all-around gold medal, given to the gymnast with the highest total score for all four events. In addition to all-around, Liliya won floor gold. I was in awe of her tumbling passes, which were unique and very difficult.

  From my tapes and lessons at Exxcel Gymnastics in Newton, Massachusetts, I already knew a few things about the sport. I knew, for example, that there were different kinds of competitions at the Olympics and other major meets, including a team competition, the individual all-around (which determined the best overall gymnast), and individual event finals (won by the best on each event). I didn’t yet have a complete grasp of how a gymnast wound up at the Olympics, but I
knew that was where I dreamed of being.

  As I watched the Magnificent Seven stand atop the Olympic medal podium and listened to the national anthem, I felt pride well up inside of me.

  The 1996 tape was my favorite. I’d watch it over and over, taking in every little detail. I was studying it, trying to soak up the gymnasts’ confidence, their attitudes, and the way they moved. No matter how many times I watched it, my heart pounded like I was seeing everything for the first time.

  When short “fluff” segments showed the top gymnasts training in their own countries, I discovered that there was more to admire about them than their gymnastics. Liliya, for instance, was shown to spend her only day off going to watch ballet with her coaches to study new techniques—she lived and breathed gymnastics. Some of the best gymnasts had overcome great hardships to realize their Olympic dreams. Some trained in poor conditions, with little medical support if they got sick or hurt. Some were already helping to support their families, even though they were still teenagers. Their stories inspired me, but I didn’t yet truly understand how much work and how many tough days were behind those medals and smiles. What I saw were strong, confident young women—and I wanted to be just like them.

  From that day on I was absolutely convinced that I would one day go to the Olympics, too. I had it all planned out: My teammates and I would win the team gold, like the Magnificent Seven had, and then I would win the floor gold, like Liliya.

  What would it be like, I wondered, to compete at the Olympics in a beautiful red, white, and blue leotard, to wave victoriously to the cheering crowd with my teammates? What would it be like to stand on a medal podium, feeling the weight of a gold medal around my neck and knowing that I was the best in the world at something? These thoughts would propel me to my feet, and I would dance around the living room on my toes, imitating Liliya’s floor choreography.

  “Aly, dinner’s ready!” my mom would call from the kitchen.

  “I’m practicing, Mom, just a few more minutes!” I’d plead, my eyes glued to the screen.