| Phoebe Mills | |||||||||||||||
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| Born | November 2, 1972 (1972-11-02) (age 52) Northfield, Illinois, U.S. | ||||||||||||||
| Gymnastics career | |||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Phoebe Mills (born November 2, 1972, inNorthfield, Illinois) is an American attorney and Olympic medalist who has been active in the sports ofartistic gymnastics,diving,speed skating andsnowboarding.
Before becoming a gymnast, Mills was a record-holding competitivespeed skater.[1] Her brother,Nathaniel Mills, competed in speed skating at the1992 Winter Olympics, the1994 Winter Olympics, and the1998 Winter Olympics, and her sisterJessica Mills won the 1989World Junior Figure Skating Championships.[2]
Mills attendedNew Trier High School, before transferring for her senior year toSpanish River Community High School.[3] She is a 2004 graduate ofVermont Law School, with a degree in environmental law. Following her graduation from law school, she owned her own small environmental law firm nearLondonderry, Vermont. She currently resides in California directing Woodward at Tahoe. She is married and has a young daughter.
Mills was coached byMarta andBéla Károlyi inHouston,Texas. She attended her first U.S. Nationals in 1984, finishing eighth in the junior division. While Mills was sometimes overshadowed in the media by her teammateKristie Phillips, she developed a reputation as a steady, consistent competitor in national and international meets, placing third at the 1985 City of Popes competition and second at the 1986U.S. Olympic Festival and U.S. Nationals (junior division). In 1987 she attended her first and onlyWorld Gymnastics Championships as a member of the sixth-place American team. She was unable to compete in the1987 Pan American Games because of an injured heel.[4]
1988 was Mills' breakout year. She won every meet she entered, including theU.S. Nationals, the American Cup, the Mardi Gras Invitational and the International Mixed Pairs, was named the United States Olympic Committee's Gymnast of the Year and was nominated for the prestigiousJames E. Sullivan Award. She also placed first at the U.S. Olympic Trials, easily earning a spot on the American squad for the1988 Olympics inSeoul.
Mills emerged as the U.S. team's most successful gymnast at the Olympics, leading the team to a fourth-place finish. While she finished a modest fifteenth place in the all-around (due to a fall on balance beam), she also qualified for three event finals, more than any other member of the team. She won a bronze medal on thebalance beam, tied withGabriela Potorac and behindDaniela Silivaş andElena Shushunova.[2] With her third-place finish, Mills became the first individual American female gymnast to win a medal in a fully attended Olympics, and the only American gymnast, male or female, to medal in Seoul. She also finished eighth on the uneven bars and sixth on the floor exercise.
Mills continued to compete in early 1989, but retired later that year, due in part to the effects ofEpstein-Barr syndrome. She has occasionally returned to the sport as a coach. In 2000, Mills was inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame.
After retiring from gymnastics, Mills became involved with competitivediving, specializing in the 10-meter platform event. She joined the diving team at theUniversity of Miami inFlorida, where she won the Big East Conference for three years. She also competed in national diving events, participating in the 1993 Olympic Festival and the U.S. Diving Championships. Mills retired from diving after graduation.
Most recently, Mills has been involved with the sport ofsnowboarding. She has acted as a snowboarding coach and instructor, working with the U.S. junior national team. Mills served as a judge at the2014 Sochi Olympic Games.[5]
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