The journeys of Suni Lee, Shilese Jones, Leanne Wong and Joscelyn Roberson highlight the transformation of U.S. gymnastics.
Alyssa Roenigk is a senior writer for ESPN whose assignments have taken her to six continents and caused her to commit countless acts of recklessness. .
These women, along with 11 others who are competing for five spots, came to this moment from different paths, but their individual stories highlight the collective cultural change that has transformed American gymnastics over the past decade. Seven-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles is the favorite to win the meet and earn the only automatic nomination to the team. The committee will choose the additional four gymnasts, plus alternates, and announce their names within 30 minutes of Sunday's final routine. This is the last chance for these athletes to prove they deserve a spot in Paris.
Jones realized she wasn't all that different from the famous gymnasts she saw on TV, and she started to believe that one day she, too, could make an Olympic team. But she needed to train like an Olympian."I thought, 'You're elite now, but you need to get somewhere where you're training with other elites,'" Jones says.
Before the Tokyo Olympics were postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Jones was"in the best shape of my life," she says, and a strong contender to make the team. But in January 2021, five months before the rescheduled trials, she fractured her back and left foot in a car accident. But then Biles invited her to perform in her post-Tokyo tour, which kicked off in late September. With each show, Jones started to rethink her future."So many girls, Olympians and world champions I look up to, were like, 'Oh, you're not done,'" Jones says."And tumbling again for the first time in several months, everything clicked back so fast. I was enjoying myself.
After his death, Jones and her mom and younger sister moved back to Seattle. With her family's support, Jones recommitted herself to making it to the Olympics to honor the belief her dad had in her -- and that she now had in herself."Joneses don't quit," she says."Every day, I think, 'Make today count. What you do in this practice, take something away from it.' That's what I strive for and what pushes me every single day to not give up.
Lee was a force in the run-up to the 2021 Olympics and even outscored Biles in the all-around on Day 2 of Olympic trials. In Tokyo, she was a favorite to win gold on uneven bars, contest for a medal in the all-around and help the team win gold. One morning in February 2023, Lee woke up with swelling in her hands, legs and face. Her body hurt, and some mornings she was so exhausted, she couldn't get out of bed. Her weight began to fluctuate wildly, and she gained up to 40 pounds of water weight. The swelling in her hands made it difficult for her to hold on to the uneven bars, her signature event. She announced she would end her college season early due to a health issue related to her kidneys.
While Biles' return dominates the headlines, this meet is also the first time Lee will compete her elite routines since Tokyo. She hasn't shared much publicly about what she is going through with her health, so she believes people expect her to be the same gymnast she was then. She forced herself to stay off social media the past few days, but the negative thoughts still crept in.
Leanne Wong, a student at the University of Florida, is the first NCAA gymnast to train only with her college coaches while competing in elite. the balloons coming her way and flushes with embarrassment. Sacramone Quinn and Memmel are walking toward 18 members of the national team, who are lined up on the gym floor by height. Jones, at 5-foot-3, and Biles and Roberson, who are 4-8, bookend their teammates. Wong, at 5-1, falls smack dab in the middle.
Wong is the first gymnast to remain in college and train with only her NCAA coaches while competing in elite. An alternate on the 2021 U.S. Olympic team, she traveled to Tokyo but spent most of the Games in quarantine after her roommate and fellow alternate, Kara Eaker, tested positive for COVID-19."It gave me a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do next," Wong says.
In Katy, Wong finds out she's headed to world championships in Antwerp, Belgium, along with Biles, Jones, Roberson, Skye Blakely and alternate Kayla DiCello."The biggest birthday gift," Wong says.a breakfast buffet in the U.S. hotel on Sunday morning. She carries a plate filled with pastries and fruit to a high-top and sits next to Coach Field and across from her mom, Bee Ding."I guess this is the first morning I'm officially done with competition," she says.
Ding can't imagine traveling halfway around the world to support her daughter and not having access to her hotel or one-on-one time to massage her back when she is hurting."She needs her mom," she says. Around that time, Roberson's mom, Ashley, a pharmaceutical chemist, accepted a new job in Houston and gave Joscelyn a choice. She could move to Houston with her and find a new gym in the powerhouse gymnastics city, or stay in Texarkana with her dad, Jeff, and older siblings, which would likely mean the end of her elite career. The choice was obvious, if painful.
But while she was warming up the vault before the team final at worlds, she landed and felt a pop and pain in her left ankle."The landing didn't look that bad," Roberson says,"but I knew it was terrible." Since joining WCC, Roberson has become close with her training partners. Biles, she says, taught her to balance hard work and fun -- even in the gym -- while showing her that there is life outside of gymnastics. It's an ethos that has permeated through the WCC walls and onto the national team.
Alicia Sacramone Quinn and Chellsie Memmel, who were teammates on the 2008 Olympic team, now lead the women's national team. a golden retriever inside Dickies Arena in Fort Worth. It's the first Sunday in June and U.S. Championships, the final meet before Olympic trials, ended a half hour ago.
Lee made her statement this weekend. With her hair pulled tightly into a bun and her lips glossed a fiery red to match her red-and-black, high-neck leo, she projected the performance she wanted to give -- and the Olympic champion that she is. She recovered from a scary fall on vault in the first rotation to nail her bars routine and perform the best beam set of her return, maybe one of the best of her career.
Now, she can hardly believe she's here."After the meet, I was constantly asking, 'Did I make trials? Did I make trials?'" Lee says. For the first time, trials will be in in Minneapolis, her hometown."Everyone's like, 'Yeah, duh, you got the red jacket!'"AP Photo/Julio Cortezto a collective gasp. In her final run of warmups, she lands a double-twisting Yurchenko on vault, grabs her left knee and hops on one foot to the side of the mat.
Jones earns the highest score of the night on bars. She scratches the final two events and spends the rest of the evening watching, knowing her Olympic dream -- a dream she chased across the country and back again, through a pandemic and injuries and her dad's death -- might be over. Her future is now out of her hands.
Lee, who is considered a lock for the team alongside Biles, fights for every score in front of her hometown crowd. When she nearly falls off beam on a layout step-out, she makes a dramatic save. Even with the mistake, she wins the night on beam.
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