Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams

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Published in time for the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, this book by a champion gymnast tells her riveting true story of pain, abuse, neglect, and endurance on the road to the Olympics. 16-page b&w photo insert.

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Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.

Publisher’s Weekly (03/17/2008)
Sey writes of her career in internationally competitive gymnastics, which culminated when she won the 1986 U.S. national championship at age 17. From the start Sey was an underdog, ever the second-best athlete on the team hoping to prove herself with tenacity and toughness. She endured numerous injuries-including a broken femur, which could have ended her career-as well as an eating disorder, depression, isolation and tremendous strain on her family. With each new sacrifice that her parents and brother made to support her, the stakes crept higher, inuring them all to gymnastics' inherent physical and psychological trauma. After claiming the U.S. title, Sey was "shell-shocked and exhausted," suddenly robbed of her lifelong motivation. "I'd always been a fighter, a come-from-behind girl. Now that I was on top, the battle would be unwinnable." The memoir's poignant glimpses at Sey's adult struggle to reckon with her past are regrettably sparse, and her prose occasionally lapses into wordiness, but overall, she has written a courageous story befitting a comeback kid-a timely release for the 2008 Olympics. (May)

Library Journal (04/01/2008)
This is a cautionary tale if there ever was one. Written by Sey, the 1986 U.S. National Gymnastics Champion, it is not a journalistic survey of the sport but rather Sey's personal story. Here, she describes how her innate competitiveness, which helped her become an elite athlete, turned destructive as she used self-inflicted pain to curb anxiety. Later, against her better judgment, she succumbed to coaches' screams about "fat athletes" and developed an eating disorder. As she rose in the ranks, Sey writes, she became somber, cheerless, totally dedicated, and grossly obsessive about her body. Meanwhile, her parents, oblivious to these signs, cheerily drove her to daily five-hour practices (since she was ten!). Sey writes with vivid, clear-eyed candor; she doesn't blame others, instead feeling that all the pressure came from within. She clearly explains the politics of judging, how anorexic urgings develop, and the athlete's mindset on both "good" and "bad" days. To this day, this former athlete, now a highly successful businesswoman, is haunted by feelings of failure. Young athletes and their parents would appreciate Sey's book; recommended for all public libraries.-Kathy Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, B.C.

ISBN: 9780061351464 | EAN: 9780061351464
Publisher: William Morrow & Company  | Publication Date: May, 2008

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