Paris 2024 Olympics: Why Aly Raisman loves gymnastics again
When Aly Raisman suddenly appeared overhead on Target Center’s massive, centre hung jumbotron during the opening act of the final night of competition at this month’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials for gymnastics, the cheers were perhaps as deafening as her presence at the event was surprising.
“It’s been so wonderful in 2024 to be back in the gymnastics world,” Raisman told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview the day after. “I feel like I kind of have re-fallen in love with the sport, which is really nice.
“I think that I needed a little bit of space from being back into the sport,” she continued. “Now, being able to be back, seeing all my teammates, getting to spend more time with them, being back in the gym, and starting to commentate has been such a wonderful experience.”
Those deafening cheers, Raisman knows, were about so much more than her many accomplishments on the field of play.
“The support from the gymnastics community has been so incredible,” she said. “I can’t even begin to share the impact it has had on me personally. It means so much to me.”
The thought of the gymnastics legend, a three-time Olympic gold medallist who captained teams to back-to-back wins at London 2012 and Rio 2016, appearing at a USA Gymnastics event had for years seemed impossible.
Since Raisman’s retirement from the sport, much of her time had been devoted, tirelessly, to being an advocate for change in gymnastics after she and hundreds of women came forward to say that they had suffered sexual assault at the hands of the former U.S. team doctor.
Her appearance at the trials was her first at a U.S. gymnastics meet in years in a year in which Raisman has found her way back to the sport as a television analyst and children’s book author.
Later this month, she’ll head to the Olympic Games Paris 2024 where she will serve as an Olympics.com contributor.
A balancing act for Team USA
The impact of the trials is something Raisman knows firsthand, and she says she felt a familiar rush of adrenaline being back on hand to watch the competition, which included her Rio 2016 teammate Simone Biles.
“It was actually really nerve wracking for me to be back in that environment, just because I know how much is at stake,” she admitted, “and I know how much all these gymnasts have worked.”
How much more work lies ahead of them, too.
Biles, Suni Lee, Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles and Hezly Rivera had only a short time back home before heading to a training in Houston. From there, they went to Arques, France, to acclimate before heading to Paris.
Raisman says the time between trials and the Olympic Games requires a delicate balance.
“Of course, they want to celebrate and have fun – and they should celebrate and take in this moment – but the irony is, at least for me, I didn’t want to take in the moment too much because I wanted to distract myself a little bit,” she recalled. “The idea of competing at the Olympics can be so – it’s so exciting – but it’s also so overwhelming and so scary.”
The key to overcoming those feelings for Raisman: preparation.
“Even though it’s going to be the biggest stage of their life, the irony is they just have to treat it like a normal day of practice,” she says. “When I was so nervous at those points at the Olympics, I kind of relied on autopilot and just kind of trusted my training.”
Aly Raisman: Third Olympic Games, new role
As Raisman made her gymnastics commentary debut earlier this year for ESPN as part of their women's collegiate coverage, she knew she was stepping out of her comfort zone.
She loved it.
“I think what honestly surprised me the most about broadcasting was how much I liked it,” Raisman said. “I’m an overthinker, and I thought, because of that, maybe it wouldn’t be a good fit for me.
“But it’s actually been good almost from a therapy standpoint to kind of push myself to be uncomfortable,” she continued, “and to not be such a perfectionist and to be okay with sometimes making mistakes or sometimes when you’re talking very quickly, I might say the wrong thing by accident. Just learning that we’re all human, and we all make mistakes. It’s part of learning and growing.”
Raisman is looking forward to the Paris Games, her first on the other side of the action, and hopes to bring her perspective as an athlete to the coverage.
“I’m excited to bring people a little bit more of the inside scoop of what goes into it,” she said. “And to talk to the women and hear what they want me to share because I want them to also feel that the stories they want to be told are being put out there.”
It’s all part of a new chapter for Raisman, who continues to make her mark on gymnastics.
“I’m really looking forward to it and am just really excited,” she said. “It’s a new challenge, it’s a new role for me… I’m excited.”