USA TODAY International Edition

Take a peek at backstory of UCLA gymnast’s viral routine

- AJ Neuharth-Keusch

We’ve all seen it by now, the twominute video of UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi’s captivatin­g floor routine.

Her unbridled joy, combined with her acrobatic flips, splits and dance moves and a legendary lineup of songs, resulted in a perfect 10 score from the judges, as well as 38 million video views on UCLA Gymnastics’ tweet and more than 858,000 retweets and favorites as of Wednesday morning.

Put simply: This wasn’t your typical floor routine. For more reasons than the obvious.

Rewind a few years, when the now 21year-old senior — an Olympic hopeful who was on top of the gymnastics world, having beaten eventual fourtime Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles in the 2013 American Cup — decided to retire from elite-level gymnastics after serious injuries and years of physical and mental burnout reached a boiling point.

“No one ever fully knew what I was going through, and I never really could say or publicize what was wrong with me,” Ohashi said in a video for The Players’ Tribune last August, noting that the pressure, specifically when it came to her body and what she ate, from fans and coaches left her “broken.”

“I was happy to be injured,” she said. “I was told that it was embarrassi­ng how big I’d become. I was compared to a bird that couldn’t fly. These are all things that I heard before I even got injured, things that, when I was skinny I was told. So what would they think of me when I had become big? I couldn’t accept myself. Gymnastics was my worth, it was my life. I hated myself.”

Now gymnastics is just a part of her life.

Speaking to USA TODAY on Tuesday, Ohashi credited UCLA — and, more important, its culture — for giving her a new lease on life.

“Coming to UCLA, having been blessed to have the coaches I have that don’t encourage us to just be athletes, (but be) human beings instead, has really helped me to (become) who I am today,” she said. “Also, having my team to support me throughout that, which is a privilege. I felt like I was dancing with them on the floor and having as much fun as possible. That’s all been a huge, huge part of my joy.”

That joy has broken the internet — more than once.

This isn’t Ohashi’s first time reaching online superstard­om. Her routine in the 2018 Pac-12 Championsh­ips, which featured a Michael Jackson medley, accrued more than 90 million views, according to UCLA Gymnastics.

Going viral once is no easy task, but twice? Ohashi has cracked the code, and she’s having a blast doing it.

“At the end of the day, I just go out there and do my best and have as much fun as I can,” she said. “You never know how anyone’s going to respond. So seeing not only that people have responded, but the types of people that have responded, is crazy.”

Those people include Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Ryan Seacrest and Troy Aikman.

In other words, Ohashi is a big deal. And not just on the mat.

 ??  ?? UCLA’s Katelyn Ohashi says, “I just go out there and do my best and have as much fun as I can.” BEN LIEBENBERG/AP
UCLA’s Katelyn Ohashi says, “I just go out there and do my best and have as much fun as I can.” BEN LIEBENBERG/AP

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