One final obstacle stands between U.S. gymnast Shilese Jones and her Olympic dream
Three years ago, now six-time world gymnastics medallist Shilese Jones was put through the wringer.
She finished 10th in the all-around at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials when the top nine placers were either named to the Olympic team or as reserve.
Months later, her beloved father, Sylvester Jones, passed after years of struggling with kidney disease.
She moved back home to Seattle after her dad’s death, having spent years of her childhood training for the 2020 Olympics in Columbus, Ohio, alongside the likes of three-time Olympic gold medal winner Gabby Douglas.
The loss, of course, changed her, says coach Sarah Korngold, who started working with the gymnast in 2022.
“When her dad passed, it gave her a big reality check, like, ‘I’m doing this for me,’ and so she just gets it. She’s there. She knows why she’s doing it,” said Korngold on Wednesday (26 June) following an official training session ahead of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for gymnastics where women's competition gets underway Friday (28 June).
“She knows what it takes to do it because she’s done it before.”
She’s excelled, too.
Since missing the Tokyo 2020 team, Jones has established herself as a force on the international women’s gymnastics scene.
At her first World Championships in 2022, she helped Team USA to a sixth-straight world gold medal before finishing runner-up to Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade in the all-around. She also grabbed an uneven bars silver.
A year later, she was once again part of the United States’ gold medal squad, and individually, once again landed on the all-around podium, taking bronze behind Simone Biles and Andrade. Her final medal there was a bronze on the bars.
Another bump in the road
Everything seemed to be pointing straight to Paris 2024 for Jones.
It even seemed that way just some six weeks ago when the 21-year-old made her 2024 season debut in sparkling fashion, finishing runner-up to Biles at the U.S. Classic, as she scored a massive 15.250 with a daring and flashy new routine on the bars.
And so, when she arrived in Minneapolis this week for the U.S. trials, it was supposed to be a crowning moments of sorts.
She had made it: Persevered, matured and - most of all - worked her way to the top.
But a years old shoulder injury reared its ugly head after that Classics triumph.
“Right after I got off the floor [there], like I didn't hear 'click.' I didn't hear any pops, nothing major. I was just like, ‘Oh, my shoulder's a little sore’. And then, I was like, ‘No, it's really sore,’” Jones recalled ahead of the U.S. Championships from which she would subsequently withdraw. “Friday, I barely could raise my arm.”
Jones went home from the U.S. champs, forced to shutdown training for a week, according to Korngold, in order to help reduce the inflammation before it became an issue that could dog her the rest of the summer, including in Paris.
Jones: "I'm a fighter, I'm a force to be reckoned with."
In Minneapolis, Korngold told media Jones’ shoulder was feeling good but there was a different issue of concern.
“We don’t have enough repetitions and because we were building up from a pretty significant rest, we couldn’t just go from zero to 100, we had to build back up, like parts [of routines], halves and whatever,” she explained. “Hopefully, she’s proven enough to the selection committee that she does build fitness quickly, she does get in shape fairly fast and we have more time.
“Hopefully, she does enough here to show that she’s ready to go to Paris.”
In Wednesday’s (26 June) official practices, that lack of endurance seemed evident. Though Jones worked through every element of her spectacular uneven bars routine, she did not perform a full routine.
She looked powerful and confident on the vault, booming her Yurchenko double twists with her usual ease, but issues crept in on the balance beam where she struggled to land many of her acrobatic elements and floor exercise where she performed a watered down routine that included a spot on her final tumbling pass.
As Korngold says, Jones has displayed an uncanny ability to progress quickly, and for someone like Jones, Friday's first day of competition could seem like a long time away.
She’s also shown she won’t give up - ever.
“I’m a fighter, I’m a force to be reckoned with,” Jones told a small group of media, including Olympics.com, at a February U.S. national team camp. “I won’t stop until I reach my full goals.”
Jones has had nearly every reason to turn back but hasn’t. And she’ll need that fight in Minneapolis as her chance to achieve that ultimate dream hangs in the balance.
“You have to earn your spot, you have to prove to the world,” Jones said. “It’s not made until your name has called. I feel like I’ve worked really hard, I feel it’s finally starting to show, I’m starting to get more consistent, more confident with my gymnastics.
“As much as I can keep proving myself, following me and Sarah’s training plan, it’ll just be a little bit more success and a little bit more steps to my ultimate goal.”