AMY CHOW
AGE: 18 DOB: 5/15/78
CAREER REVIEW Amy Chow has trained with her present coach, Mark Young, for 15 years and has competed for the United States National Team for six years. Chow qualified for the 1995 World Championships Team, but unfortunately sprained her ankle and was unable to attend. Amy soon came back as a member of the 1995 Pan American Games Team. She won three individual medals in addition to her team gold: a gold medal on the vault, a silver medal on the uneven bars and a bronze in the all-around competition. This summer at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Chow became the first Asian-American gymnast to compete for the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Team. Chow's journey to the Olympics was not without its obstacles. Just weeks before the Olympic Trials, Amy was a question mark to make the team. Back spasms had forced her to withdraw from the U.S. Championships after she completed only the compulsory competition. She was in sixth place and petitioned to get in the trials. While battling for a position on the U.S. Team at the Olympic Trials after winning her petition, Chow fell and hit her head on her last event, the balance beam, after a back flip went awry. After a few tense seconds, she regained her poise, jumped back up on the beam and finished her routine flawlessly. Despite the fall, Chow finished in fourth place at the Trials. With Shannon Miller's and Dominique Moceanu's scores carrying over from the U.S. Championships, Chow wound up in sixth place overall, securing her spot on the seven-member team. She made her mark on the Games by not only helping the team to capture its first ever team gold medal, but by also winning an individual silver medal in her favorite event, the uneven parallel bars...Amy Chow's trademark is silent power. She is not much for talking and instead prefers her gymnastics to talk for her. Amy infuses her routines with more difficulty than most gymnasts. On the vault, she does the hardest vault currently being performed by women, the double-twisting Yurchenko. On the beam, among other moves, she does a trick in the piked position that nobody else in the sport is throwing. On the bars, she was the first to perform a back stalder with one and a half twists, and after she used it in the 1994 Worlds, the move was named for her. But Chow has abandoned "the Chow" in search of the more difficult "Chow II", which entails a double-twisting double back dismount...Though Amy spends much of her time traveling with the Professional Gymnastics Tour, she trains five days a week for five hours per day when she is at home. She enjoys the Tour because she doesn't have to dedicate as much time to rigorous training for competition and has more time to spend participating in less stressful exhibitions...Amy Chow will be performing a new floor routine for the Professional Gymnastics Championships. Floor exercise has always been her weakest event due to her quiet and introspective nature. Unlike her childhood hero, Mary Lou Retton, Chow does not enjoy playing to the crowd. Her biggest challenge of late has been to add style and pizazz to her difficult routines. PERSONAL Amy is the daughter of Nelson and Susan Chow, both of whom emigrated to the United States from Hong Kong. Nelson was born in Guanghzou, China, and made the short trip across the border to Hong Kong at the age of 10. Though Nelson and Susan both hail from Hong Kong, they did not meet until they were students at San Jose State...Amy became involved with gymnastics by default. Susan wanted her daughter to be a ballerina and tried to enroll Amy in ballet classes at the age of three. None of the area teachers, however, were willing to accept a student at such a young age. Amy signed up for gymnastics classes instead with Mark Young, who had just purchased the West Valley Gymnastics Club near San Jose, California...Chow is not only an exceptional gymnast, she also maintained a 4.0 grade point average at the most prestigious high school in Palo Alto, California, and is an accomplished pianist. She has taken piano lessons since the age of four and received the advanced level certificate of merit from 1993-1996. She also performed in the National Piano Auditions for 14 years...In addition to gymnastics, Amy competed in diving during the summers as a child...Amy is currently taking two correspondence courses and plans to attend Stanford University in the fall. She wants to become a pediatrician after her gymnastics career is over...Amy's younger brother Kevin, age 17, is a level I gymnast.
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