Ultimately, she moved to Salt Lake City.Ĭompeting every weekend and being part of the strong Ute team and supported by a coalition of diehard Utah gymnastics fans reminded Skinner why she was a gymnast in the first place. I want to try something different, make new friends,” she said. “I was just so over gymnastics at that point that I was like, I just need something different. The intense training for the Rio Games had taken a toll, and she felt burned out. “Do I go to college? Do I continue to train elite and just go straight for the next Olympics?” she remembers thinking. This time, she had a front row seat as the “Final Five” flipped to a second consecutive Olympic team gold.īy then she was 19, and unsure about what to do next. Instead, the Utah commit was designated one of three replacement athletes that traveled to Rio de Janeiro but did not ultimately compete. In 2016, Skinner finished fourth in the all-around at the Olympic trials, but was overlooked for the five-person team by the selection committee. Energized by her results, she carried on, making the world championships team in 2014, winning gold with the team and picking up a bronze on vault. As a 15-year-old in 2012, she was in the top 20 in the U.S., and watched the “Fierce Five” go on to win the United States’ first Olympic team title since 1996. Skinner has twice come close to making the Olympic team. Louis, when COVID-19 brought the world to a halt. Olympic Team Trials, scheduled for June in St. Finally recharged, she was sprinting toward the U.S. “I never got a break, and so that was really hard, so being able to come down a bit was super nice,” she says of their winter honeymoon in Thailand. Shortly after she returned home, her longtime boyfriend Jonas Harmer proposed, and the couple wed in Salt Lake City in November. The elite season comes on the heels of the NCAA championships, meaning Skinner had no time to catch her breath from January to October of 2019, a stint that ended with a trip to Stuttgart, Germany, as the alternate for the world championships. Things have come at Skinner almost nonstop since she left Utah. It’s a Wednesday, which along with Sundays are Skinner’s days off from a busy training schedule that includes around 20 hours a week at Desert Lights Gymnastics in Chandler, Arizona, as well as personal training sessions to augment her strength, and physical therapy to keep nagging aches and pains at bay. The endpoint was always fixed today it’s the beginning Skinner’s unsure about. The hiatus was only supposed to last a year, and whether or not she made the Olympic team, Skinner always planned to return to Utah this fall. Currently 23, making it to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 would be a feat itself in a sport that favors teenagers. There was a whole plan in place when MyKayla Skinner left the University of Utah last spring to return to full-time elite gymnastics training, dedicating herself to one last run at an Olympic team. Follow along on social media with the hashtag #TokyoTuesday. Each Tuesday leading up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, which will be held in the summer of 2021, will present a nugget you should read about – from athletes to watch to storylines to follow to Japanese culture and landmarks – as part of “Tokyo Tuesday.” There’s a lot to learn on your quest to becoming the ultimate fan.
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