McKayla Maroney

Despite being a celebrity sports person and actress, McKayla has lived a very disciplined life. She has several fans on social media but not much is known about her relationship status.

McKayla Maroney was born on December 9, 1995 to Mike and Erin Maroney in Long Beach, California. Both her parents were involved in sports during their youth. Her father played quarterback for the Purdue University team and her mother participated in figure skating during her high school days. She belongs to a close knit family with two siblings, Tarynn and Kav.

McKayla was very energetic and had a flexible body as a child. Her mother recognised her natural talent and decided to train her as a gymnast. In order to start young, Kayla was given home education to concentrate on her sport. At the age of nine, she enrolled at the Gym-Max in Costa Mesa, California and set her sights on the Olympics. She also enjoyed soccer, ice skating and tennis in her free time.

She was greatly influenced by Olympian, Carly Patterson and went for Olympic trials for the first time in 2004 with Kyla Ross. Though she was not selected in the team, it was a great learning experience for her, which she has always cherished. Quickly moving from level 5 to 10, she began to compete in national level gymnastic competitions over the next four years and became a name to reckon with.

At the age of 13, she participated at the Visa Championship in Dallas, Texas. She finished third in the vault final and secured an all round 27th place in the event. It was the first time that she performed an Amanar vault in a competition.

The following year she came seventh at the Cover Girl Classic in Chicago. By then she had made vaulting her strong point which she proved by securing the first position in vault at the Visa Championship at Hartford. She was judged third all round in the Championship.

Her first senior level competition was the City of Jesolo Trophy in 2011, where she won the title of best all round gymnast.

It did not take long for McKayla to attain international experience. In 2011, she became the World Vault Champion at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championship held at Tokyo, Japan.

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games was a high point in the career of McKayla, where she won a Gold medal as part of the US gymnastics team and a silver medal for her individual performance in the vault. It was for the first time, since 1996, that the US women’s gymnastics team won gold in the Olympics. McKayla was also tipped to win gold in the vault, but suffered a setback due to two imperfect landings that brought her position down to second.

McKayla was not too happy with her silver medal at the Olympic Games and her expression at the podium said it all. In fact, the photograph went viral on the internet with the caption ‘McKayla is not impressed’. In July 2012, she was featured on the cover of the ‘Sports Illustrated’ magazine, along with the rest of the US women’s gymnastics team.

In September 2012, she suffered an injury while performing on the uneven bars at the Kellogg’s Tour in Ontario due to which she had to take a break from gymnastics for a while. During this period, she appeared as one of the judges for the Miss America Pageant and participated in the ‘Thirty Seconds to Mars’ video, ‘Up in the Air’. She also made an endorsement for Adidas.

McKayla specialised in the vault event for which she won a silver medal at the 2012 Olympic Games at London.

She had previously won a gold medal for vault at the 2011 Tokyo World Championship and defended her title by winning the gold medal for vault again at the 2013 Antwerp World Championship.

She also won a gold medal for the team event at the 2011 Tokyo World Championship and 2012 London Olympic Games.

Besides the vault, she was adjudged the best all round gymnast in the 2011 National Championship held at Saint Paul.

In addition to her sports career, McKayla has appeared in the television series ‘Hart of Dixie’ in 2012. She also had a recurring role in six episodes of ‘Baby, Don’t Get Hooked on Me’. In 2013, she played a role in the Fox TV show ‘Bones’, where she is a gymnast who is suspected of murder of a fellow gymnast.