1. Personal life

2. Junior career
     2014: Level 10    2015    2016: Junior Elite  

3. Senior career
     2017    2018   2019 

4. Selected competitive skills

5. Competitive History
    Junior  Senior 

6. References

7. External links

Riley Shannon McCusker (born July 9, 2001) is an American artistic gymnast and a three-time member of the United States women's national gymnastics team (2016-2019). She was a member of the gold-medal-winning American team at the 2018 World Championships. She is a two-time U.S. national all-around bronze medalist (2017, 2018) and the 2017 U.S. national uneven bars champion.

Personal life

McCusker was born to Tom and Jessica McCusker in 2001, and she has three siblings. McCusker began gymnastics in 2008. She is homeschooled.^[1]

Junior career

2014: Level 10

McCusker moved up to Level 10 in 2014, at the age of 14 – Level 10 is the highest level of the USA Gymnastics JO Program. At the time she was training at Dynamic Gymnastics in Mohegan Lake, New York under the tutelage of Teodora Ungureanu. At the New York State Championships, she won the all-around title for the Junior A division, as well as titles on bars, beam and floor.^[2] Two weeks later she participated in the 2014 Region 6 Championships where she won the all-around and vault title for the Junior A division.^[3] She consequently qualified to the 2014 J.O. Nationals.^[4] At Nationals, held in Jackson, Mississippi, McCusker finished 30th in the all-around.^[5]

2015

McCusker was absent from competition throughout the entire 2015 season; she and her family moved from Connecticut to Brielle, New Jersey so that she could train at MG Elite Gymnastics in Morganville, New Jersey and receive better coaching, as her former club did not have the resources.^[6] MG Elite had produced rising junior star Laurie Hernandez at the time.

2016: Junior Elite

In January 2016, McCusker participated in the 2016 Parkettes Invitational in Allentown, Pennsylvania; she competed as a junior elite. She won the all-around title, in addition to all four other event titles.^[7] On February 4, 2016, she committed to the University of Florida and the Florida Gators gymnastics program.^[8] She received full Junior International Elite status in March when she passed the optionals stage with a 52.000 at the 2016 KPAC Cup.^[9]

McCusker participated in the 2016 American Classic in May at the Karolyi Ranch in Huntsville, Texas – she finished in a tie for fifth.^[10] On June 4, 2016, she participated in the 2016 U.S. Classic in Hartford, Connecticut where she finished ninth in the all-around, receiving qualification to Nationals.^[11]

At the 2016 U.S. National Gymnastics Championships in St. Louis, Missouri, she was second in the all-around after day one of competition with a 56.450.^[12] She managed to sustain the result on the second day, finishing second in the all-around with a combined total score of 112.000.^[13] She also won silver medals on bars, beam, and floor. Consequently, she was named to the U.S. Junior National Team.^[14]

Senior career

2017

In February 2017, McCusker was named as the wildcard athlete for the 2017 AT&T American Cup, an FIG event held on March 4 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.^[15] McCusker represented the United States alongside 2016 Olympic alternate Ragan Smith.^[16] In her senior international debut, McCusker finished 5th overall with a 52.966, behind Kim Bui of Germany, Melanie De Jesus dos Santos of France, Asuka Teramoto of Japan, and Smith, after a fall off of the uneven bars and a scary fall in her dismount off the beam, landing on her neck.^[17][18][19]

McCusker then competed at the City of Jesolo Trophy in April, where she won the all-around gold medal and helped the US team win the team gold medal.^[20] After competing in Italy McCusker suffered both an ankle injury and a wrist injury and was forced to stop training for a few months.^[21][22] She competed at the 2017 U.S. Classic; due to her injury, she did not compete at her highest level and finished eighth on uneven bars, thirteenth on balance beam, and fourth on floor exercise.^[23]

In August, McCusker competed at the 2017 U.S. National Gymnastics Championships where she placed third in the All-Around behind Ragan Smith and Jordan Chiles. She was the uneven bars champion at this event and placed second on the balance beam, once again behind Smith.

Due to her results at the City of Jesolo Trophy and the National Championships, McCusker was placed on the nominative roster for the World Championships, but in September, she was once again injured and had to withdraw from the Worlds Selection Camp and forfeit her chance to make the team that would compete at the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships.^[24]

2018

McCusker competed at the Brestyan's National Qualifier in June, where she had the highest score on uneven bars and the second highest score on balance beam.^[25] She then competed at the American Classic on July 7, where she only competed on two events.^[26] She finished seventh on uneven bars after a fall and finished second on balance beam.^[27] On July 28, McCusker competed at the 2018 U.S. Classic where she finished second in the all-around and on balance beam, losing to Simone Biles on both, and she finished first on uneven bars ahead of Biles and fourth on floor exercise.^[28] In August McCusker competed at the National Championships where she placed third in the all-around behind Biles and Morgan Hurd, second on uneven bars behind Biles, and third on balance behind Biles and Kara Eaker. She also placed seventh on floor exercise.^[29]

In October, McCusker participated in the World Team Selection Camp. During the competition she placed first on the uneven bars, second in the all-around behind Biles and on balance beam behind Eaker, third on floor exercise behind Biles and Grace McCallum, and seventh on vault.^[30] The following day she was named to the team to compete at the 2018 World Championships alongside Biles, Hurd, McCallum, Eaker, and alternate Ragan Smith.^[31][32] During the qualification round, McCusker finished eighth all-around after falling off the balance beam and having a sub-par uneven bars performance. She did not qualify to the All-Around Final due to teammates Biles and Hurd scoring higher than her.^[33] During the Team Final, McCusker competed on uneven bars and balance beam. She rebounded from her troubles in the qualification round to contribute scores of 14.500 and 13.733 respectively towards the USA's team total. USA won gold with a score of 171.629, 8.766 points ahead of second place Russia,^[34] beating previous margin of victory records set in the open-ended code of points era at the 2014 World Championships (6.693) and the 2016 Olympic Games (8.209).^[35]

2019

In February, USA Gymnastics announced that McCusker was selected to compete at the Birmingham World Cup in March.^[36] There she finished second behind Aliya Mustafina despite falling on her vault and off the balance beam. She recorded the highest scores on the other two apparatuses.^[37]

Selected competitive skills

Competitive History

Junior

Senior

References

External links

• {{FIG|lic=37663|bio=62281|name=Riley McCusker}}
• {{USA Gymnastics|392351}}

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