Elite Gymnasts Return with Los Angeles Dreams
The Home Games are Bringing Out America's Biggest Stars
Gone are the days of gymnasts peaking and retiring in their teens. Now, with a healthier environment in the sport, gymnasts are competing in both college and elite, for chances in multiple Olympics, and well into their 20s and even 30s.
With the upcoming 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, now only two years away, American gymnasts are returning from breaks and even coming out of retirement for the opportunity to compete in front of their home crowd.
Jade Carey was the first of the two-time Olympians from the 2024 team to announce her return to elite competition. At the Olympics, she won the gold medal on vault as an individual representing the U.S. in 2020, won team gold as a member of the “Golden Girls'“ in 2024, and won bronze on vault in 2024. Carey was also a member of the U.S. team at Worlds in 2017, 2019, and 2022, and has a total of seven World Championships medals. She is tied with Aly Raisman for the fifth most decorated U.S. woman gymnast.
Carey hasn’t just had success in the elite gymnastics world. She competed for the Oregon State Beavers from 2022 to 2025, scored 11 Perfect 10s and completed two Gym Slams, won six individual NCAA medals, won the AAI Award as the most outstanding senior gymnast in 2025, and was one of the most consistent gymnasts in NCAA history with a 100% hit rate.
She had been competing with little break between the Tokyo quad, Paris quad, and her NCAA gymnastics career. Now a year out from her last collegiate season (in which she took a brief break but was still posting gym content on her TikTok), Carey is back to competing and placed first on vault and floor and second in the all-around at the 2026 American Classic. She will compete this Saturday in the U.S. Classic, which will air live on NBCSN and Peacock at 7PM EST.
Katelyn Ohashi, known for her viral floor routines while at UCLA, took the gymternet by surprise with her return to elite competition. She last competed elite at the American Cup in 2013, and where she won the all-around gold over Simone Biles. Ohashi then retired from elite and competed Level 10, and then competed for the UCLA Bruins from 2016 to 2019. She won four NCAA medals, including the team title and floor title in 2018. She was also a member of Biles’ “Gold Over America Tour” in 2021 and 2024, and posted TikToks in the gym following her collegiate retirement.
“After a few years of contemplating whether I wanted to continue chasing a dream I had as a little kid, I have decided to go for it,” Ohashi posted on Instagram last month. “I’m taking it one day at a time; one skill, one event, one dream. I don’t have any regrets in my career and I want to be able to continue saying that no matter what happens. So here goes nothing! Thankful for [Pacific Reign Gymnastics] for taking a chance on me!”
At the 2026 American Classic, her first elite competition in 13 years, Ohashi placed third on beam. She will also compete in the U.S. Classic this weekend.
Suni Lee, the 2020 Olympic all-around champion and 2024 Olympic all-around bronze medalist, announced her return to elite competition yesterday. She is the seventh most decorated U.S. woman gymnast with six Olympic medals and three World medals. Thanks to new opportunities that NIL deals brought to athletes, especially gymnasts, Lee was able to compete in the NCAA while also making profit for her gymnastics career. She became the first Olympic women’s all-around champion to compete in the NCAA. Lee competed for the Auburn Tigers in 2022 and 2023, and won the NCAA beam title and was runner-up in the all-around in 2022.
Kidney diseases put Lee’s collegiate career to an abrupt end, and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to return to gymnastics at all, let alone make a second Olympics. She became even more of an inspiration than she already had been when she fought through adversity, returned to gymnastics, made her second Olympic team, and won another all-around medal.
Lee hadn’t made clear if she would return to the sport or retire following the 2024 Olympics. And with overcoming illness to make another Olympics, many gymnastics fans assumed her comeback was complete. But she told her coach, Jess Graba, after falling in her 2024 Olympic Balance Beam Final routine that she’d need to come back in 2028. And yesterday, she made her decision to return to gymnastics public.
“I know what I’m capable of,” Lee says in a video with footage of her training and competing, “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get there.”
The text at the end of the video states “This is more than a comeback, stay tuned.”
Lee’s return to gymnastics will be followed and filmed for a documentary.
Jordan Chiles recently completed her final season at UCLA. She has definitely more than earned a break, as she became a best-selling author, competed on and toured with “Dancing with the Stars,” and completed a stellar NCAA career simultaneously. And while she hasn’t given any hints one way or the other, I wouldn’t be surprised if she announced she’s returning to elite gymnastics and training with UCLA, where she would truly have a home Olympics. The world needs a Jordan Chiles Olympic floor routine (and medal!) in front of the LA crowd!
And now the biggest question in the world of gymnastics: will Simone Biles return for her fourth Olympics? Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all time, the GOAT across all sports, is the fourth American woman to compete in artistic gymnastics at three Olympics (after Muriel Grossfield, Linda Metheny, and Dominique Dawes). If Biles were to return for the Los Angeles Games, she would become the first American woman to compete in four Olympics, and only the sixth woman ever to compete in artistic gymnastics in four or more Olympics.
We are two years away from the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. What do you think the women’s artistic gymnastics team will look like?