Three years after a triumphant performance in Beijing, Shawn Johnson is pushing to regain both her form and confidence.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — In her mind, Shawn Johnson finds herself lapsing into an unwinnable comparison. Her body keeps telling her she’s not the bouncy, bubbly teenager who won four Olympic medals in Beijing in 2008. Her two falls at last month’s CoverGirl Classic, her first meet since the Olympics, showed how far off she was. One year removed from left knee ligament surgery, Johnson still isn’t ready to perform floor exercise.

Johnson admitted to frightful nerves before Thursday night’s preliminaries at the U.S. gymnastics championship, the second meet in her comeback. Pep talks from her coach, Liang Chow, and women’s national team coordinator Martha Karolyi helped steady her, and Johnson responded with encouraging performances on the three events she entered. She finished in the top seven on each, scoring 14.0 or better, topped by a 14.7 on her specialty, the balance beam.

“I keep telling everybody I’m not who I was in 2008, but I felt like I haven’t really been believing that myself,” Johnson said. “I keep going out there and keep reminding myself, I was that Olympic champion on beam. I know what I’m capable of. Having that kind of pressure on yourself is kind of scary. So you just kind of throw all that out the window and go, you know what, it’s my first competition back, just like it was in 2005. It kind of puts it in perspective for you.”

The crowd-pleasing Johnson couldn’t steal the show from newcomer Jordyn Wieber, the first-day all-around leader, or fellow 2008 Olympian Chellsie Memmel, whose third-place performance at the Xcel Energy Center stirred up her boisterous, T-shirt wearing supporters.

Clearly, Johnson still has work to do. She teetered twice on beam, the second time nearly falling off before regaining her balance on one muscular leg. She finished better on bars (14.35), sticking her dismount and running off with a huge smile.

“Martha [Karolyi] came up to me and she’s like, ‘You just need to relax, do a good job, I have faith in you,’” Johnson said. “I had a lot of people telling me that this time. I really kind of focused in and said, you know what? I really want that redemption, for people to notice my hard work. I did a lot better than Classics. I’m by no means back to where I want to be, but I made a huge improvement.

“I feel like I’m just at the beginning. You can see from the scores that I’m not there to compete for that top spot yet. But I feel like, especially after this meet today, that I can justify that I am in contention and I’m serious, and the progress I’ve made from Classics to now should show people I am working hard and I really do want this.”

Chow told her she doesn’t have to be the Shawn Johnson of 2008, just do her best. That helped, too.

“She was more nervous than three years ago,” Chow said. “But again, I think after this meet, we will have more training time in the gym, and that will build her confidence as well.”
source:espn.go.com