Santiago 2023 Pan American Games: Gymnast Luisa Blanco on the precipice of Olympic dream
The 21-year-old University of Alabama graduate student is enjoying "a heck of a ride" as she represents her Colombian heritage
Artistic Gymnastics
Colombian gymnast Luisa Blanco is living one dream while on the verge of achieving another.
The 21-year-old made her Pan American Games debut on Sunday (22 October 2023) in Santiago, Chile, some five years after competing for the first time internationally as a senior at the 2018 International Gymnix, representing Team USA.
"It's literally the biggest thing that I can come out here and represent where my parents are from and where my family's from. I've grown up Colombian my whole life," Blanco told Olympics.com after competition. "Despite living in the States, I've always had close ties to my heritage, so it's a really full-circle moment for me."
After two of three subdivisions, Blanco sits sixth in the all-around standings and is the highest ranked, Olympic quota-eligible athlete behind three Americans and two Mexicans, two NOCs that have maxed out their Paris 2024 quotas in women's artistic gymnastics.
In Monday's all-around final, a repeat performance would be a crowning achievement.
"I feel like I can't even put my head there yet," she admitted. "It would be a dream come true and I know everyone says it, but you work your entire life for this and you just want to enjoy it so I'm not even thinking about it."
Luisa Blanco: Working under Suni Lee's coach and studying for a master's
That Blanco is even competing in elite gymnastics is a feat in and of itself.
She somehow balances training in Minneapolis under coach Jess Graba - who also looks after Olympic all-around champion Sunisa Lee - with her final year at the University of Alabama where she is studying for a master's degree.
"It's been a crazy ride. I've been going since NCAAs in April. I started training with Jess in the summer and then it was back and forth, bouncing from Bama to Minnesota, and then competing in Colombia," Blanco said of her schedule. "All the fun things, all while getting a master's degree, so it's been a heck of a ride."
One well worth it and one she would have made earlier in her career had something not been missing.
"It's a long time coming. I wanted to do it since I was little. Unfortunately, just the situation I was in and my love for the sport just wasn't there," Blanco explained. "But I've regained it a lot in college so, in my last year, I just figured I want to go out with no regrets."