Shannon Miller, was the best in the world on the balance beam and displayed a natural grace in becoming the most decorated American gymnast ever in the last decade of the 20th century.

Miller won five medals at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where, she was the most decorated American. The 1996 Atlanta Olympics' audience saw Miller contribute to winning the first American women's team gold medal. She also was the first American to win an individual gold medal on the balance beam in 100 years of Olympic competition.

All of this while doing something she loved, in a sport she loved. "The best thing about it is it was just something I loved to do, and I was able to take it so far," Miller said. "I love the gymnastics itself. I love everything about being in gymnastics, being with my teammates, traveling, meeting new people and competing. I love the adrenaline flow you get when you're getting ready to go and compete."

Miller has won gold medals in every fully-attended, major gymnastics competition available to Americans in the world. Along the way she has earned 42 international medals. She is the only American to ever win back-to-back World Championships. All of this makes her the winningest gymnast in the world in the 1990s.

She began her gymnastics career at the age of four, when her parents Ron and Claudia Miller enrolled her in an Edmond club.

She changed gyms in 1987, and began the climb to international gymnastics stardom with Steve Nunno as her coach. In the Summer of 1988, Miller competed in her first international meet at the Junior Pan American Games in Ponce, Puerto Rico. There she placed second all-around, won four medals, and helped the Junior USA women's team take home the gold.

Miller won the U.S. Classic in 1989. This qualified her for the '89 U.S. Olympic Festival in Oklahoma City where her gold medal on the uneven bars was her first national championship. Competing in Japan later that year, she led the U.S. team to an unprecedented bronze medal finish.

It was at the end of 1989 that Peggy Liddick, Miller's former personal choreographer and beam coach, left a successful program in Nebraska to begin coaching her at Dynamo Gymnastics in Oklahoma City. Except for the Olympics, Liddick and Dynamo owner Nunno headed every international coaching staff involving overseas travel that Miller competed for during her career.

In 1990, Miller became the youngest gymnast ever on the U.S. senior national team. Miller won her first international competition as a senior at the end of 1990, at the Catania Cup in Sicily. She was the first American to win the meet, taking home four gold and one silver trophies.

At the 1991 World Championships in Indianapolis, Miller was second in the world after the compulsory round. She then totaled the most points for the American team, leading them to an unprecedented team silver-medal finish. She earned an individual silver medal on the uneven bars and became the first American woman ever to qualify for all four event finals.

Miller did not stop at Worlds in 1991. She won the Swiss Cup and the Arthur Gander Memorial competitions in December in Montreaux, Switzerland. Besides winning every event and the all-around, she set the highest American all-around score (39.875) to that time at the Montreaux meet. She also received her first perfect 10.0 in international competition on the balance beam.

In 1992, she dominated the Olympics in Barcelona. She was the first American to qualify for all four individual event finals at an Olympics. She nearly won the coveted gold medal in the all-around, only to be edged out by Soviet Tatiana Gutsu by .012 of a point. Miller's medals were silver for the all-around and balance beam, bronze for uneven bar, floor exercise and team.

She led her team to the first American team medal (bronze) in a non-boycotted Olympics. Her silver medal for all-around was the first all-around medal of any kind for an American in a non-boycotted Olympics. Her medal count made Miller the most-decorated U.S. Olympian of the 1992 summer and winter games.

Miller won the McDonald's Cup in March of 1993, in Orlando, Fla., beginning a string of major titles that set her apart from all previous American women gymnasts. In April 1993, Miller became only the second American woman to win the World Championship All-Around Gold Medal in Birmingham, England, against 62 countries. Miller dominated the '93 U.S. Olympic Festival in San Antonio. When the chalk dust cleared, Miller had won five gold medals on her way to setting or tying five festival records.

At the August 1993, Coca-Cola USA National Championships in Salt Lake City, Miller won her first national championship. She earned three golds, a silver and a bronze medal to cap an unprecedented, undefeated 1993 that included five major titles. She received the rarely-awarded Master of Sport Award from USA Gymnastics at its annual congress that year.

In 1994, although plagued by nagging injuries, she won an unprecedented second consecutive World Championships All-Around Gold Medal in Brisbane, Australia. She also took gold on beam.

Miller led an all-Dynamo Gymnastics delegation of five gymnasts to the 1994 Goodwill Games in St. Petersburg, Russia. Although placing second for the first time since Barcelona in the all-around, she still led the U.S. women's team to its most successful Goodwill Games ever. This second place ended the longest string of international all-around gold medals in U.S. women's gymnastics history. Miller came back the very next day to win every event in the individual finals. Miller was the most decorated athlete of the Goodwill Games and became the most decorated American athlete in any Goodwill Games.

In February 1995, she won the all-around title at the American Classic in Oakland, Calif. She then led the U.S. team in March to a gold medal finish at the Pan-American Games in Argentina. This was the only non-Olympic meet Miller had not won to that date. She won the all-around and two additional golds and one silver to become the most decorated gymnast of the Games.

As a run-up to the Olympic Trials, Miller won the Championship of the USA in June 1996, despite aggravating tendinitis in her wrist. Because of her injury her national championship scores were compared to those posted by other athletes at the Olympic Trials. This allowed her to make the U.S. Olympic Team without competing in the trials.

Miller gained more than 25 pounds and grew six inches between the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics. This required her coaches to re-evaluate her potential for new skills and elements to accommodate her growth. Some sport insiders counted Miller out for Atlanta, but her coaches just worked harder to prepare her.

Her gold medals in Atlanta were the only rewards in the sport that had escaped her up to that point. It was only fitting that after five lesser medals in Barcelona, her two gold medals were all she brought home from Atlanta.

However, about the importance of her achieving a gold medal, Miller was quick to emphasize her own goal of satisfying herself. "I don't think the medal (Olympic beam gold) was important," Miller said. "If I had hit my beam routine and not gotten the medal, I would have been just as pleased."

Miller returned in August of 1997 to where she won her first international meet to compete in the World University Games in Catania, Sicily. She won the all-around gold medal to become the first American to do so in the 38-year history of the games. She also helped propel the team to a silver medal.

Becoming engaged in October of 1998, she married newly-graduated physician Chris Phillips, from Lookeba, Okla., in June of 1999.

She traveled with the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team to both the Pan American Games in Canada and the World Championships in China in 1999 to advise the athletes. Miller made a strong comeback to attempt another Olympics in 2000. Injury prevented her from competing.

Miller is now living in Houston while her husband completes his ophthalmology residency there.

Credit: shanfan.com