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Olympic Gymnasts Jordyn Wieber, Chris Brooks Are Engaged
by Chrös McDougall
Jordyn Wieber celebrates after competing on the floor exercise in the Artistic Gymnastics Women's Team final at the Olympic Games London 2012 on July 31, 2012 in London, England.
Call it a match made in gymnastics heaven.
Jordyn Wieber, the 2011 world all-around champion who went on to win a gold medal with the U.S. team at the Olympic Games London 2012, and fellow U.S. Olympic gymnast Chris Brooks are getting married.
Brooks, 34, made the proposal over the weekend while Wieber, 26, was being inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame, the couple told People in a story announcing their engagement.
“He walked in the door, my jaw dropped, and he got on one knee,” Wieber recalled to People.
Wieber, a native of DeWitt, Michigan, helped usher in a new era of U.S. dominance in women’s gymnastics, and is now the head coach for the team at the University of Arkansas. Houston native Brooks is one of her assistant coaches.
The couple met in 2011 when competing at that year’s world championships in Tokyo and began dating six years later.
That 2011 season proved to be a pivotal one for both gymnasts, though for different reasons.
In her first year as a senior elite gymnast, Wieber won the all-around world title and played a key role in the U.S. winning the team title. One year later, she was a member of the dominant “Fierce Five” U.S. team that won in London. A favorite to contend for the 2012 Olympic all-around title as well, Wieber posted the fourth-best score in qualifying but in a cruel twist missed the final due to the “two-per-country” rule when two U.S. teammates finished ahead of her.
She retired from competitive gymnastics after that but went on to earn her degree while climbing the coaching ranks at UCLA. In 2019, she moved east to take over as head coach of the Razorbacks. Wieber has also been a vocal advocate speaking out against sexual abuse in the sport.
Though Brooks was also relatively early in his elite gymnastics career in 2011, his Olympic journey proved much longer.
Following his world championships debut in 2010, he was an alternate at the 2011 worlds and 2012 Olympics, and battled through injuries in the years that followed. Finally, in 2015, the charismatic gymnast broke through with a return to the world championships, and then his “career of almosts” turned into a fairytale when he was selected to the 2016 Olympic team.
That fairytale continued over the weekend when he surprised Wieber by showing up at the hall of fame induction.
“We designed the ring together a few weeks ago, but I had no idea it was ready or when he was gonna propose,” Wieber told People. “Definitely didn’t expect him to show up in Michigan.”