under-rotated her vault, stubbed the low bar with her foot on the uneven bars, and had several wobbles on balance beam and a lunge forward on her dismount. She later admitted to being distracted after a rushed start on vault, with her coach saying, "The beginning of the competition was stressful. It set the tone." The U.S. women, the reigning world champions, settled for silver. In the individual all-around, Patterson narrowly defeated three-time world all-around champion Svetlana Khorkina of Russia. After scoring lower than usual on the vault (9.375), Patterson was stronger on her last three events, scoring 9.575 on the uneven bars, 9.725 on the balance beam, and 9.712 on the floor exercise. She became only the second American woman to win an Olympic all-around gold medal, and the first to do so in a non-boycotted Olympic Games. (Mary Lou Retton won the title at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. But because those Games were boycotted by the Soviet Union, Retton did not face the Soviet gymnasts who consistently dominated the sport during that period, accounting for five of the eight Olympic all-around champions before 1984 and nine of the ten previous world all-around champions.) On August 23, Patterson competed in the balance beam event final, where she received a score of 9.775 and won the silver medal behind Cătălina Ponor of Romania. Post-Olympics Soon after the Olympics, Patterson was diagnosed with several bulging discs in her lower back that had gone unnoticed. She announced her intention to take time off from the sport to rehabilitate her back, but she officially retired in 2006 without ever participating in another major competition. She recalled the decision in a 2009 interview, saying, "I started having some back issues, and honestly, my doctor was like, 'Carly, you really need to stop if you want to be able to walk when you get older.' ... So I retired and moved on to singing." She continues to stay occupied with event appearances, gymnastics-related and otherwise. She is focused on expanding her career as motivational speaker sharing her story with all age groups and corporate audiences. She also has a number of high-profile corporate sponsorships; she appeared in a Mobile ESPN commercial aired during Super Bowl XL in 2006. She also finished her authorized biography, which was released in April 2006. In December 2011, she was featured on the TV show Hollywood at