Katelyn Ohashi chasing joyful L.A. Olympic dream

The bubbly giggle. The megawatt smile.

The queen of joyful gymnastics is back.

Seven years after gaining fame as UCLA’s “perfect 10 gymnast” and 13 years since last competing at an elite stage, Katelyn Ohashi has returned to gymnastics with new targets and the same outlook.

“I want to have fun with it,” Ohashi said on a video convention Thursday, less than two weeks after making her return to aggressive gymnastics at the American Classic. “I want to see how far I can go with it, and how far I can push myself.”

Still only two aggressive routines into her comeback, Ohashi said the concept of competing in a home Olympics at the 2028 Los Angeles Games is “a beautiful thing to think about.”

She is plotting her own path. The 29-year-old’s first elite meet since 2013 was on June 27, when she tied for third on beam and carried out a ground routine with mild tumbling passes. She will compete at the U.S. Classic on July 18 with hopes of qualifying for the U.S. championships, which determines the national group roster.

Competing on only beam and ground, Ohashi wants to attain 26.80 factors in her routines to qualify for the national championships. The meet in August could be her first U.S. championship as a senior gymnast. Gymnasts sometimes make senior debuts at 16 years outdated. More than a decade older than some of her opponents, Ohashi can’t help but giggle at how circuitous her path has been.

“It’s really funny, also,” Ohashi said through laughter, “because, like, I’m pretty much a senior citizen.”

The deadline for a feminine gymnast’s Olympic desires used to be 16 years outdated, Ohashi was told. But watching Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles win group gold at the Paris Olympics impressed Ohashi. The group, which also included 16-year-old Hezly Rivera, was the oldest U.S. ladies’s gymnastics group in the Olympics since 1952. Every gymnast who competed in the group remaining was in her 20s.

In 2024, the then-27-year-old Biles was the oldest U.S. feminine gymnast to qualify for the Olympics since 1952. When Ohashi lately called her longtime good friend about her plan to return to elite gymnastics after a 13-year retirement, Biles “thought I was crazy,” Ohashi said.

“Which,” Ohashi continued, “most people, I think, might.”

Ohashi has nothing left to show. In her first senior worldwide competitors at 15, she beat Biles for the 2013 American Cup all-around crown — the last time Biles misplaced an all-around title. After accidents derailed her promising elite profession and the game’s abusive tradition robbed her of her pleasure, Ohashi reached famous person standing while rediscovering her love of the game with UCLA. She received a group NCAA title and the ground particular person title in 2018. As a senior, her Michael Jackson-inspired routine went viral and drew sold-out crowds to virtually all of UCLA’s meets.

Since her remaining school routine in 2019, Ohashi was loving her retired athlete life. She did talking appearances, traveled and printed a e book of her poetry. She loved all the time and freedom she had.

She still missed the health club.

“I have not been able to replicate the feeling or the joy, sensations, adrenaline that gymnastics or competing brings,” Ohashi said.

Staying related in the game by collaborating in Biles’ “Gold Over America Tour” in 2021 and 2024, Ohashi would often joke of a comeback. Calculating her age and trying toward an Olympics in the town that helped her fall in love with gymnastics again, Ohashi knew that if the joke was ever going to grow to be real, it had to be soon.

So Ohashi began working with a personal coach, lifting weights for three hours a day for 4 days a week. In January, she moved back to her hometown of Seattle, in half to be nearer to her household, and began training with Cale Robinson at Pacific Reign Gymnastics in Woodinville, Wash.

Most expertise got here back seamlessly, even ones she hadn’t executed in competitors since she was 16. The first month felt great. Then fatigue began setting in. Ohashi liked that problem.

Former UCLA star gymnast Katelyn Ohashi performs during the “Gold Over America Tour” at Crypto.com Arena on Sept. 25, 2021.

(Katharine Lotze / Getty Images)

Because Ohashi, who suffered a back fracture and accidents to both shoulders during her elite profession, can’t do as many reps as she did as a teenager, she makes each one depend more now. Between training her upgraded expertise, she focuses on conditioning and religiously attends bodily therapy classes.

Still early in her comeback, Ohashi said she’s “physically getting there.” She is mentally stronger than ever.

“There are still those hard days, but it’s a lot easier when I know that I’m doing it for me, and me only,” Ohashi said. “And only I can push myself on those days.”

Ohashi needs to push past the baseline she set at the American Classic, where her two-event whole was 24.65 factors. The meet, which was staged in a health club with one set of bleachers and followers sitting on mats, was an intimate heat up for the sector stage Ohashi will take at the U.S. Classic in Hartford, Conn.

Ohashi walked into her first elite meet in 13 years next to Carey, who, at 26, is attempting for her third Olympics. Entering the health club, Ohashi giggled that so many of the judges from a decade in the past had been still there. She acknowledged so many coaches. She was greeting everybody and waving. Carey seemed at her in shock and requested what she was doing.

She was just having enjoyable.