OYO: The underappreciated Julianne McNamara. UPDATED

Someone added Julianne’s name to the wikipedia page. Link is below. It wasn’t me 🙂 Though very convenient it was added now.

Olympic Year Opinion: Julianne McNamara was better than you remember. Though sadly it doesn’t seem like many people remember her at all. I however am here to school you on why, Julianne is one of the most under-appreciated gymnasts the United States doesn’t remember existed.

Did you know that Julianne is the first US gymnast to make all 4 Event finals at Worlds ? In 1981 she made the Bars (Bronze medal) , Beam(5th) and Floor finals (7th) and in 1983 she made the Vault finals finishing 6th. (She also made bars finals that year and finished 7th) It wasn’t until 1991 that the US would accomplish this feat again at a World Championships (Shannon Miller who was the first to make all event finals at the same Worlds and Olympics) More under-appreciation? NO VIDEO on you tube

At the 1984 Olympic while the world remembers smiley, Mary Lou vaulting her way to gold with a perfect ten (with a step), Julianne quietly won the Olympic bar title and made the event final on Floor winning a silver medal. She is the only US medalist at that 84 games that would have had a chance to win a medal if the Soviets had shown up.

She finished 6th at the 1980 Olympic trials and could have won a medal on bars if the US didn’t boycott. Julianne could have potentially been a two time Olympian. Take that MLR!

If you talk to a die hard gymnastics fan and ask them the best US gymnasts the names mentioned with consist of Simone and Shannon.. Then you can debate the Shawn, Nastia, Chellsie, Alicia, Gabby, Jordyn, Kim Zmeskal etc… to finish out the top ten lists. If you talk to every 4 year fans you will hear the names Simone and Mary Lou. They might even remember Shawn Johnson from her Dancing with the stars win (and her Olympic AA gold medal. Yep she didn’t actually win that but a lot of people think she did) The one name you rarely ever hear mentioned is Julianne. IMO, She should be right up there in the top 10 discussion. She won her World medal at a fully attended, Soviet dominated competition when Americans were lucky to even make an event finals let alone sneak into the medals. There was some heavy Soviet favoring by the judges back in those times so for an American to sneak into a medal is a huge accomplishment. The only US gymnasts to medal before her were, Rigby, Frederick and a Kathy Johnson’s Floor bronze.

And if you need any more proof that Julianne doesn’t get the credit she deserves check out the USA, Wikipedia page for gymnastics. They list the medals won by gymnasts from the US and include only the ones who have 4 medals or more. Julianne has 4 but her name isn’t even mentioned ( Worlds- 1 bronze Bars medal. 1984 Olympics, team silver, Bars gold and Floor silver.

Sadly, USA-gymnastics doesn’t care about any gymnastics that happened before 2008 but that doesn’t mean the trailblazers that came before the Simone Biles of the world shouldn’t be recognized for their contributions. Julianne’s name should be on the top of that list.

A young Christina Appelgate. RIP Samantha Smith and a Julieanne flipping.