Pre-Phelps swimming, women's gymnastics was the focal point of US summer olympic TV coverage.

The US women's team was very competitive in the 90's and 00's.

Pure anecdote, but off the top of my head I could name at least ten women's Olympics gymnasts from the past twenty years and not a single swimmer other than Phellps and Lochte. The Bela Karolyi era was very, very good for US gymnasts and TV coverage followed. It seems to be the summer games analogue to figure skating in the winter games, Americans are consistently competitive and attention/coverage follows, particularly given the perceived demographics of Olympics viewers vis a vis other sporting events.

> up until 10 years ago

This made me curious, as it didn't match my recollection. Checking the medal counts, it's apparent that the USA women's gymnastics team has been very competitive for roughly 30 years now. It's fair to wonder why the coverage isn't better by now.

Looking there up until 2004 I see mostly SU, Romania, China. There is only a single gold for US in 1984 by Retton and a silver for Miller in 92.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_medalists_in_g...

That kind of jives with my recollection how medals were distributed.

You're ignoring the team all-around. The US got silver in 84, bronze in 92, gold in 96, and bronze in 2000. I think it's fair to say that the US as a team was one of the dominant forces in that time period, even if they didn't have the individual medalists.

Also remember that the USSR (and friends) didn't attend the 1984 Olympics.

Ah! Makes sense, forgot about that.

Bit longer than 10 years ago. Americans have been very into gymnastics at the Olympics since at least Mary Lou Retton in 84, and the 96 Olympics the womens team was a huge part of the storyline. Same with Beijing and London.

Mens generally doesn't get the same attention in the US, but the womens team tend to be some of the most highly recognized and reported on during and after the games.

Mary Lou Retton. `84, LA Olympics.

Gynmastics was a Big Deal then.

I bet. But it was one gold medal in what 50 years?

No, there was also Shannon Miller and the other Americans in '96, the first time that the US team won a gold medal in competition with the Russian team.

Gymnastics has been hugely popular in the USA during my entire life (more than 40 years, I'm afraid).