Gymnast Jennifer Sey May 20, 2008

Meet US National gymnastics Champion Jennifer Sey, when she discusses Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams.

The true story of the 1986 U.S. National Gymnastics champion whose lifelong dream was to compete in the Olympics, until anorexia, injuries, and coaching abuses nearly destroyed her.
Fanciful dreams of gold medals and Nadia Comaneci led Jennifer Sey to become a gymnast at the age of six. She was a natural at the sport, and her early success propelled her family to sacrifice everything to help her become, by age eleven, one of America's elite, competing at prestigious events worldwide alongside such future gymnastics luminaries as Mary Lou Retton.
But as she set her sights higher and higher--the senior national team, the World Championships, the 1988 Olympics--Sey began to change, putting her needs, her health, and her well being aside in the name of winning. And the adults in her life refused to notice her downward spiral.
In Chalked Up Sey reveals the tarnish behind her gold medals. A powerful portrait of intensity and drive, eating disorders and stage parents, abusive coaches and manipulative businessmen, denial and the seduction of success, it is the story of a young girl whose dreams would become eclipsed by the adults around her. As she recounts her experiences, Sey sheds light on the destructiveness of our winning-is-everything culture where underage and underweight girls are celebrated and on the need for balance in children's lives.

Bio:
Jennifer Sey began competing in gymnastics at the age of six and went on to become 1986 National Gymnastics Champion and seven-time national team member. A graduate of Stanford University, Sey was named one of the "Top 40 Marketers under 40" by "Advertising Age" in 2006 for her work at Levi Strauss & Co. She has also written and produced two short films. She lives with her husband and two sons in San Francisco.

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