For 3 Filipino American gymnasts, an unexpected Olympic opportunity

PARIS - Three years ago, the gymnasts who advanced to the U.S. Olympic trials gathered on the floor at the national championships, held in Texas, and posed while wearing cowboy hats and holding plaques. They could celebrate that their Olympic dreams lived on.

The other athletes, a smaller group of just 10 gymnasts, watched from afar - without cowboy hats, plaques or a chance to earn a spot on the team headed to Tokyo. Aleah Finnegan was part of that disappointed group, and she believed that moment marked the end of her elite career.

So if someone had told her then that she would be here, “Oh, my gosh, I’d be literally looking at you sideways, like you’re crazy,” said Finnegan, tearing up at the Olympic gymnastics venue in Paris.

After Finnegan began competing for LSU in the next chapter of her career, an official from the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines reached out to her mother with an opportunity: Finnegan could represent her mother’s native country. She decided to return to elite gymnastics and qualified for the Paris Games, a once-unthinkable accomplishment.

Finnegan will compete Sunday for the Philippines alongside Emma Malabuyo and Levi Jung-Ruivivar, two other Filipino Americans and former U.S. national team members who followed a similar path. They hope their performances will help grow the sport in the Philippines. They will be the first to represent the Philippines in women’s artistic gymnastics at the Olympics since 1964.

Before the start of the women’s gymnastics competition, Finnegan stood in an interview space that resembled a loading dock. She had just practiced in an empty venue, but the bright lights and the Philippine flag hanging in the arena made the grandeur of the event and the significance of the moment inescapable.

“I’m going to get emotional because it’s finally hitting a little bit,” Finnegan said with the same teary eyes she had after the world championships in Belgium last fall when she earned this Olympic berth. “The Olympics is something that is just so near and dear to my heart. Just trying to take in every single moment as it comes to me and trying to do the best I can to represent the Philippines well.”

These Filipino American gymnasts qualified for the Games through differing avenues over the past year. They will compete as individuals, rather than as a team, but they’ve known one another for years and are experiencing these Olympics together.

They made baguettes in a baking class in the Olympic Village alongside the Irish rugby team. They recorded TikToks and traded pins. Finnegan stayed alongside Jung-Ruivivar last week as she received emergency medical care after suffering a severe allergic reaction. (Jung-Ruivivar posted videos on social media describing the episode as “an Olympic experience like no other” and said she is okay.) They got coffee with friends from the U.S. team and then floated down the Seine, soaking wet from rain while waving Philippine flags during the Opening Ceremonies. And everywhere they go, there are Olympic rings - constant reminders of the summit they have reached.

“They’re so good at branding,” Jung-Ruivivar said after training in the arena filled with Paris 2024 logos.

Malabuyo came the closest to reaching this stage in the U.S. program, finishing fourth at the national championships in 2021, then ninth at the Olympic trials. She headed to Tokyo as an alternate, an experience marred by pandemic-related protocols that intensified when a fellow U.S. alternate contracted the coronavirus. Jung-Ruivivar, who wasn’t age-eligible for the Tokyo Games, competed at U.S. nationals several times, as recently as last year, but never finished higher than 14th in the all-around.

All three made it to the highest tier of gymnastics in the United States - a level that includes just a few dozen athletes at any time - but they weren’t quite good enough to earn one of the competitive spots on a U.S. team for the world championships or the Olympics.

Finnegan and Malabuyo arrived at college in 2021 believing they never again would compete at the elite level. When the Philippine federation reached out to Finnegan’s mother to extend this opportunity, “I wasn’t really sure if that was a door that I wanted to open quite yet,” she said. But a few months later, she competed at the Southeast Asian Games. Finnegan had the most straightforward Olympic qualification path: She competed at the world championships in 2023, placing 32nd in the all-around during the qualifying round, which was enough to clinch a berth.

Last year, the federation contacted Malabuyo, whose parents are Filipino. She felt content with what she accomplished as a U.S. elite, but with the Philippines assembling a team for the Asian Championships, she figured she could contribute on beam and floor.

“She was in a really good place as far as just loving the sport again and having fun doing it,” said Janelle McDonald, who coaches Malabuyo at UCLA. During Malabuyo’s sophomore year in 2023, she rediscovered the “joy that she had for gymnastics and then really remembered what it was like to have big goals and really go after them,” McDonald said.

Malabuyo met with the UCLA coaches last fall with a plan: She would chase her Olympic dream via the sport’s World Cup series while remaining with her college team. It turned into a wildly complicated few months, with Malabuyo competing at several early-season NCAA competitions before traveling to Egypt and Germany. She returned home, competed at Stanford and then headed to Azerbaijan a week later.

Entering the final World Cup event in Qatar, Malabuyo had a chance to clinch an Olympic berth. Her ranking points, compiled based on the standings at these meets, needed to land in the top two among the eligible athletes on an apparatus. She was in strong position on floor.

Jung-Ruivivar, who realized representing the Philippines might be possible by watching Finnegan and Malabuyo, competed at this series of meets as well. She had a less complicated schedule because she hasn’t moved on to college yet, and she entered that final competition in April with a chance on bars.

Jung-Ruivivar earned the spot. Malabuyo did not.

Malabuyo stayed up all night as the frustration lingered. When she returned to UCLA, she cried while sitting on the floor with teammate Brooklyn Moors, a former elite who represented Canada.

But there was still one more opportunity, the Asian Championships in May. One more gymnast, whoever finished the highest in the all-around, would qualify.

“She kind of left the sadness on the floor that day and got up and hasn’t stopped since,” McDonald said.

They scrambled to prepare because Malabuyo needed to compete on all four apparatuses, which she hadn’t done at an elite competition since 2021. Malabuyo hadn’t vaulted in more than a year, McDonald said, and a shoulder injury had kept her from practicing turning elements on bars.

At the decisive competition in Uzbekistan, Malabuyo performed well and then had to wait. Two sessions followed, and if any gymnast from a country that hadn’t maximized its number of qualifiers scored better, her pursuit of an Olympic bid would be over. Finally, the scores of the final rotation confirmed that Malabuyo had held on by just 0.033 points - a smaller margin than the deduction for the tiniest error - to become the third Filipino American gymnast headed to Paris.

They’re almost certainly not going to win any medals. They’re here for all the other moments. And for gymnasts in the Philippines, a country that has gone so long without any female gymnasts reaching this level, Finnegan said, “I hope it’ll unlock a dream.”