Aleah Finnegan, Emma Malabuyo and Levi Jung-Ruivivar will be the first women’s gymnasts to represent the Philippines since 1964.
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.
“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.
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.
“She kind of left the sadness on the floor that day and got up and hasn’t stopped since,” McDonald said.
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