View source for Elise Ray

{{Short description|American artistic gymnast}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2024}}
{{Infobox gymnast
|name= Elise Ray
|image=
|imagesize=
|caption= Ray in 1999
|fullname=
|nickname=
|country= {{USA}}
|formercountry=
|birth_date= {{birth date and age|mf=y|1982|02|06}}
|birth_place= [[Tallahassee]], [[Florida]]
|hometown=
|height=
|discipline= WAG
|natlteam= 1996–2001 ([[United States women's national gymnastics team|USA]])
|club=Hill's Angels
|gym=
|collegeteam=[[Michigan Wolverines women's gymnastics|Michigan Wolverines]]
|headcoach=
|assistcoach=
|formercoach= [[Kelli Hill]]
|choreographer=[[Dominic Zito]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dominiczito.com/#!experience/cjg9 |title=World Gymnastics Choreographer}}</ref>
|music=
|eponymousskills=
|retired= April 24, 2005
|show-medals = yes
|medaltemplates= <!-- see [[Template:MedalRelatedTemplates]] -->
{{MedalSport|Women's [[Gymnastics at the Summer Olympics|gymnastics]]}}
{{MedalCountry | the {{USA}} }}
{{MedalCompetition|[[Olympic Games]]}}
{{MedalBronze | [[2000 Summer Olympics|2000 Sydney]] | [[Gymnastics at the 2000 Summer Olympics|Team]]}}
{{MedalCompetition| [[Goodwill Games]]}}
{{MedalSilver| 1998 New York|Uneven Bars}}
{{MedalCountry|[[Michigan Wolverines women's gymnastics|Michigan Wolverines]]}}
[[File:Michigan Wolverines logo.svg|center|60px]]
{{MedalCompetition | [[NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships|NCAA Championships]] }}
{{MedalGold|[[2001 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship|2001 Athens]]|All Around}}
{{MedalGold|[[2002 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship|2002 Tuscaloosa]]|Balance Beam}}
{{MedalGold|[[2004 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship|2004 Los Angeles]]|Uneven Bars}}
{{MedalSilver|[[2005 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship|2005 Los Angeles]]|Balance Beam}}
{{MedalBronze|[[2001 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship|2001 Athens]]|Team}}
{{MedalBronze|[[2001 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship|2001 Athens]]|Uneven Bars}}
{{MedalBronze|[[2004 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship|2004 Los Angeles]]|Balance Beam}}
}}

'''Mary Elise Ray''' (born February 6, 1982) is an American [[gymnast]] who represented the United States at the [[2000 Olympics]] in [[Sydney]] and the 1999 World Championships. She was the head gymnastics coach at the [[University of Washington]] from 2016 to 2020.

==Biography and early career==
Ray attended Steven's Forest Elementary School and Wilde Lake High School in [[Columbia, MD|Columbia]], Maryland and went on to train at Hill's Angels club in [[Maryland]] under [[Kelli Hill]], coach of Olympic medalists [[Dominique Dawes]] and [[Courtney Kupets]]. She earned her first US national team berth as a junior in 1996 and turned in a strong performance in her international debut, the 1996 Junior Pan American Championships, placing second in the all-around and winning gold on the [[uneven bars]] and [[floor exercise]]. She continued to excel in the years that followed, picking up an uneven bars silver medal at the 1998 [[Goodwill Games]]. At the 1999 World Championships in [[Tianjin]], [[China]], Ray was the highest-ranked American of the competition, finishing eighth in the all-around.

==Sydney Olympics and vault controversy==
Ray won both the [[USA Gymnastics National Championships|US National Championships]] and the Olympic Trials in 2000. At the Sydney Olympics, Ray was the only American woman to qualify for an event final, [[balance beam]]. In spite of this, she would encounter major difficulties at the Olympics. In the all-around finals, officials mistakenly set the [[Vault (architecture)|vault]] apparatus 5&nbsp;cm too low; the situation was not remedied until the competition was halfway over. The change completely altered gymnasts' entry and postflight and caused several crashes. Ray was one of the gymnasts who vaulted before the error was discovered; she fell on both her warmup and competition vaults. On one of her warm up vaults, she came inches away from crashing on her head. Although Ray escaped injury, the experience left her shaken, and she also fell from beam. It is impossible to tell how much her subsequent performances were affected. Gymnasts who had vaulted on the incorrectly set apparatus were invited to redo their vaults at the end of the session; Ray accepted this offer and ended up in 13th place with her revised score. Like most gymnasts who had used the incorrectly set vault, Ray felt that it had a negative effect on her performance: she opined during a post competition interview with NBC that she could have medalled had it not happened. She also placed eighth in the beam final, bringing an end to a very disappointing Olympics for USA Gymnastics.

==Post-Olympics==
After Sydney, Elise attended the [[University of Michigan]] on a full athletic scholarship, where she majored in English. She crowned a very successful [[National Collegiate Athletic Association|NCAA]] career by leading her team to the Super Six finals in 2005, and winning a silver on beam. Previously, she tied (with Onnie Willis of UCLA) for the all-around title in 2001 and won golds in the balance beam (2002) and uneven bars (2004) events. She performed for three years in [[Cirque du Soleil]], where she was a member of the Cadre team in the [[Las Vegas Strip|Las Vegas]] resident show ''[[O (Cirque du Soleil)|O]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showstickets/o/O-acts5.htm |title="O" - Cirque du Soleil Official Website - Show |access-date=April 13, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090802034359/http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showstickets/o/O-acts5.htm |archive-date=2 August 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref> She also performed in the Cirque Show, Love. Ray also serves occasionally as a color commentator for [[Big Ten Network]] broadcasts of women's gymnastics. She coached at Carroll Gymnastics Center<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.carrollgymnastics.com/ |title=Carroll Gymnastics, Inc |publisher=Carrollgymnastics.com |date= |accessdate=June 10, 2022}}</ref> in Hampstead, Maryland, afterward.

On April 28, 2010, Elise and the other women on the 2000 Olympic team were awarded the bronze medal in the team competition when it was discovered that the previous medal winners, the Chinese team, had falsified the age of team member [[Dong Fangxiao]]. As a result of the falsification, Dong's results were nullified, and the Chinese team was stripped of the medal by the [[IOC]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/04/28/olympics.china.stripped.bronze/index.html?hpt=T2 |title=China stripped of 2000 Olympic bronze |publisher=CNN.com |date= |accessdate=June 10, 2022}}</ref>

The U.S. team was given their bronze medals at a special ceremony prior to the men's competition at the U.S. Championships in August 2010.

On September 22, 2011, Elise joined the [[Washington Huskies]] gymnastics program as an assistant coach, replacing her former Michigan teammate Shanna Hannan and reuniting with head coach Joanne Bowers, who was an assistant coach at Michigan.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/w-gym/spec-rel/092211aaa.html |title=Elise Ray Named New Gymnastics Assistant - University of Washington Official Athletic Site |access-date=September 23, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120403014117/http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/w-gym/spec-rel/092211aaa.html |archive-date=3 April 2012}}</ref>

On May 27, 2016,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://usagym.org/pages/post.html?PostID=18620&prog= |title=Ray Named University of Washington Head Coach |access-date=May 27, 2016 |archive-date=4 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160804205937/https://usagym.org/pages/post.html?PostID=18620&prog= |url-status=dead}}</ref> Ray was named the new head coach of the Huskies program following the resignation of previous coach Joanne Bowers;<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gohuskies.com/fls/30200/ray/release.html |title=Washington Volleyball / Release}}</ref> she had been with the University of Washington for five years.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gohuskies.com/fls/30200/datapoints/elise_ray.html |title=GoHuskies - Data Points}}</ref> Ray resigned her coaching position in October 2020, as she and her family moved away from the Seattle area.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://gohuskies.com/news/2020/10/21/elise-ray-statz-announces-resignation-from-gymnastics-program.aspx |title=Washington Huskies|date=October 21, 2020 }}</ref>

==Eponymous skills==
Ray has two eponymous uneven bars skills listed in the [[Code of Points (gymnastics)|Code of Points]] and another that is not official in the Code of Points due to its low difficulty value.<ref>{{cite web |title=Women’s Artistic Gymnastics – 2025-2028 Code of Points |url=https://www.gymnastics.sport/publicdir/rules/files/en_1.1%20-%20WAG%20COP%202025-2028.pdf |website=[[International Gymnastics Federation]] |date=22 April 2024 |access-date=2 February 2025}}</ref>
{|class="wikitable"
|-
! Apparatus  !! Name  !! Description  !! [[Code of Points (gymnastics)#Table of elements|Difficulty]]{{efn|name=difficulty|Valid for the 2025–2028 Code of Points}}
|-
|rowspan="3"| Uneven bars || Ray || Backward stalder facing inward with release and straddled counter movement forward in flight to hang on high bar || B (0.2)
|-
| Ray II || Piked sole circle (toe-on) into a Tkachev || D (0.4)
|-
| Ray III || Double-twisting double layout dismount || G (0.7)
|}
{{notelist}}

==Additional achievements==
Elise Ray graduated from the University of Michigan with the most All-America honors (14) in the program's history.

Elise Ray is the [[Big Ten Conference]]'s all-time leader in Gymnast of the Week citations, earning nine in her career.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{FIG}}
* [https://members.usagym.org/pages/athletes/archivedbios/r/eray.html Elise Ray] at [[USA Gymnastics]]
* {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303215244/http://www.gohuskies.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=777915&SPID=126631&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=30200&ATCLID=208062369&Q_SEASON=2012 |date=mdy |title=Elise Ray at GoHuskies.com}}

{{Footer USA Gymnastics 2000 Summer Olympics}}
{{Footer NCAA Gymnastics All-Around Champions (Women)}}
{{Footer NCAA Gymnastics Uneven Bars Champions (Women)}}
{{Footer NCAA Gymnastics Balance Beam Champions (Women)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ray, Elise}}
[[Category:1982 births]]
[[Category:American female artistic gymnasts]]
[[Category:Cirque du Soleil performers]]
[[Category:Competitors at the 1998 Goodwill Games]]
[[Category:Goodwill Games medalists in gymnastics]]
[[Category:Gymnasts at the 2000 Summer Olympics]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics]]
[[Category:Michigan Wolverines women's gymnasts]]
[[Category:Olympic bronze medalists for the United States in gymnastics]]
[[Category:Originators of elements in artistic gymnastics]]
[[Category:U.S. women's national team gymnasts]]
[[Category:20th-century American sportswomen]]