No doubts about it, Memmel back for one more try

But Memmel — and her father — are all in now.

She’ll compete at her first major event in almost two years Saturday night with the hope of qualifying for next month’s national championships.

“This is just to show everyone where she is right now, in the beginning stages,’’ Andy Memmel said.

The Beijing Olympics were supposed to be the happy ending to Memmel’s star-crossed career.

She was just 15 when she went from being a late-addition alternate to the anchor of the first U.S. women’s team to win the world title in 2003. With the Athens Olympics only a year away, and the poise to match her dazzling array of skills, she seemed destined for the same sort of success as Mary Lou Retton and Shannon Miller. Memmel’s explosive power makes her a natural for floor and vault, but her technique is so refined she’s world class on balance beam and uneven bars, too.

But a foot injury kept her off the Athens squad, and she had to settle for being an alternate when the U.S. women won the silver medal and Carly Patterson became the first American since Retton to win the all-around title.

Memmel bounced back in a big way in 2005, edging Nastia Liukin by 0.001 points to join Kim Zmeskal and Miller as the only Americans to win the world title (Shawn Johnson and Bridget Sloan have since joined that exclusive club). She also won silvers on bars and balance beam, helping the U.S. women cart home nine of the 15 medals available.

She blew out her shoulder at the 2006 world championships, and missed most of the next 1 ½ years.

Finally healthy, she was a model of consistency in the summer of 2008, finishing behind Johnson and Liukin at both the national championships and Olympic trials to earn a trip to Beijing.

But she injured her ankle five days before the Olympics began — she’d find out later she’d broken it — and could only do uneven bars in both qualifying and team finals. The Americans were beaten by China for the gold medal, a bitter disappointment after winning the world title the year before.