- [Commentator] And
this is Katelyn Ohashi, impressive to say the least. - [Ohashi] There was a time where I was on top of the world, an Olympic hopeful. - Simone Biles. - She will not be the American Cup champion. - Katelyn Ohashi wins it. - [Ohashi] I was unbeatable. Until I wasn't. - [Coach] Good arms, tight body. - I want to do bars there. Too high? Please. This girl's joy is just being present. She just keeps going and going like nothing's stopping her. Living day by day and
enjoying every second of it. Flipping and flipping
and even at a young age, even when she didn't have gymnastics, she was still in the gym. Gymnastics was her world. - Katelyn Ohashi of WOGA on floor exercise. - [Ohashi] That girl that
you would think had it all, all these medals in her room, podiums she's standing on, she thought she had nothing. - Well here's young Katelyn Ohashi. - Double-pike dismount here. - Pretty solid routine. - Yeah, still going to get a very good score, but she
can be actually much better. - [Ohashi] Fans would tell her
that she wasn't good enough. She didn't look a certain way. She wanted to eat junk food
and feel O.K. the next day and not have to worry
about getting kicked out because she couldn't make a scale. Then constantly exercising after a meal just to feel good enough to go to bed. She was on this path of
almost invincibility. And then her back just gave out. She wanted to experience what it was like to be a kid again. - Katelyn, smile. - [Ohashi] I was broken. No one ever fully knew
what I was going through. And I never really could say or publicize what was wrong with me. I was happy to be injured. I was told that it was
embarrassing how big I'd become. I was compared to a
bird that couldn't fly. These are all things I heard
before I'd even got injured, things that when I was skinny I was told, so what would they think of me when I had become big. I couldn't accept myself. Gymnastics was my worth. It was my life. I hated myself. It took me finding Miss Val and UCLA and having a different
goal and path to follow to finally find joy and
love within the sport again. - What is that? - Togetherness. - [Miss Val] This is what?
Togetherness, the bond, the fibers of the trampoline.
This is Bruin family, right? And what happens with Bruin family? We trust each other, right? It's about trust. It's about enthusiasm. It's about passion for everything we do. It's about the fact that
we're all very unique, and we all bring different
things to this fiber, right? - I look up to my coach so much. My Mom wasn't exactly happy when I quit elite gymnastics and
wanted to go to college. Miss Val asked her why she had
like a change in her heart, and she said, "I see how
happy my daughter is." - [Coach] No ducky. - And that's all it took to really ... to feel like a person again. - [Supporters] Let's go Kate. - Get it, Kate! - [Ohashi] I think gymnastics
can be a very brutal sport, but I don't think it's
supposed to be a brutal sport. I just hope that in 10, 20 years there will be people leaving the sport feeling untouched by it. At the end of the day I think, this should've been my path. I haven't been able to feel this type of happiness in a long time. I found my joy, my voice, myself, and
my love for the sport. It's not the outcome. It's not me standing on
a podium with medals. It's me being able to walk
out with a smile on my face and truly being like happy with myself, and that comes first.
This is definitely a very thought provoking video, at least to me. There is so much to unpack about what this video says about athletics at a top level and what it does to people. Can you be at the top level and not be destroyed by the pursuit? When should young people face the question of pushing their limits further or to accept they hit their best and re-apply themselves to new challenges? Is competing at such a high level setting yourself up for disappointment if you hit your peak before you expected to?
Just some more food for thought relating to that last point. Around 2005 or so, I was on a flag football team and our quarterback was a truly gift athlete. I'm sure he could have been a star in pop-warner but he was playing flag football because his real passion was baseball and he did not want to get injured playing tackle football. As good of a quarterback that he was, he was several levels ahead of 90% of kids that play baseball. At the age of 13 he went to Japan to play in the World Series for whatever division he was in. Unfortunately, they lost to the Japanese team, on TV, and there is footage of him crying because of the loss. My dad pointed out that he should be happy he was there but soooo much importance was put on this single event that for at least some of those kids they could have hit the high points of their lives or at least their athletic careers before they hit puberty. The point was, a lot of those kids probably didn't think their journey in baseball would ever take them as high, and it is a crime that we let athletes that young be in a position where they don't think they can get better. Athletics should start as a way to promote healthy development and to have fun and very slowly transition into the competition that can fuel athletes to amazing feats but it shouldn't get there before the kids have had time to develop both physically and mentally. You risk molding a person into someone that became an adult in an environment of intense pressure, importance on physical ability, and who will see winning as a requirement for happiness.
Her thoughts are very similar to some of my own in my mid-late twenties.
I thought I had it figured out then 26 rolled around and I can't really explain it but it just seemed like my current lifestyle was no longer acceptable. I thought my other career was going to last me for the rest of my life. Then I started getting horrible anxiety and I kinda just found out that my first career wasn't going to work out anymore.
But I think I rolled out of that black hole just by picking up my boot straps and started learning some new skills like programming and graphic design. getting back on the horse actually feels great even though I'm starting from the bottom again.
Like two months ago I saw her compete with other colleges. She's the only gymnast I know by name because a few videos I saw on Reddit.
When I saw her name on the list of atheletes I was stoked, because I know nothing about the sport, but here was a name I knew! She was fucking phenomenal. I was pointing at the screen yelling at my gf "that's that girl who did the thing to a Michael Jackson song!"
Found the link:
https://youtu.be/hhak8bgbLtw
Dat ass tho..
She on top