Olympic gymnast still enjoys visit to her hometown

TUSCOLA – Linda Metheny-Mulvihill's first gymnastics competition in New York City was her first indication that gymnastics would take her far from her Tuscola home.

The Olympian and famous choreographer grew up in rural Douglas County and didn't start gymnastics until she was 14. But by the time she was 17, she made the Olympic team and competed in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. She also competed in the Olympics in 1968, where she missed a bronze medal on the balance beam by less than a point. She helped her team to a fourth-place Olympic finish in 1972.

Metheny-Mulvihill isn't just a talented gymnast. She was named National Choreographer of the Year by the U.S. Gymnastics Federation in 1989 and has choreographed required routines for the USGF from 1980 to 1984 and from 1989 to 1992. She's also judged gymnastics at the last two summer Olympic games.

Metheny-Mulvihill and husband Dick Mulvihill operate the National Academy of Artistic Gymnastics in Springfield, Ore. There, they've trained 17 Olympians and more than 50 national champions.

But despite her successes, Metheny-Mulvihill said she visits family in Tuscola twice a year, and liked showing rural Illinois to her children, who are all now grown.

"I always love coming back," Metheny-Mulvihill said.