Jade Carey of USA Gymnastics recounts her fall on the floor and notes that she hasn’t been feeling well.
Gymnast Jade Carey of the United States said that she has been battling an unidentified ailment lately, attributing her uncharacteristically subpar performance on floor exercise to the illness during Sunday’s gymnastics qualifying round at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Carey, 24, revealed the sickness to Olympics.com, saying she hasn’t “been able to eat or anything” for the past three days. She wanted to come clean so fans wouldn’t think she was just nervous. Her father and coach, Brian Carey, missed the team’s podium practice on Thursday due to illness, as USA Gymnastics had previously disclosed.
“I haven’t been feeling the best the past few days, but I gave it everything I had today,” Carey continued on X, formerly known as Twitter. I appreciate all of your help that I have had. I’m really appreciative.”
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In the mixed zone, Carey and the other members of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team did not pause to answer questions from reporters.
Carey participated in the floor exercise and vault competitions on Sunday. She performed exceptionally well on the latter, averaging 14.433 points over two tries, which ought to get her into the eight-woman apparatus final. She did, however, have a great deal of difficulty on the floor, where she earned the gold medal in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
On many tumbling attempts, the Oregon State product skipped out of bounds. On her final pass, she tumbled onto her back and nearly fell off the mat. Her final execution score was an astonishingly low 6.433 out of 10, with nine tenths of a point deducted. After the first two qualifying sessions, she finished dead last with an overall floor exercise score of 10.633, which was nearly 3.5 points below her average from the U.S. Olympic trials, which took place about a month ago.
Employees at USA Gymnastics seemed to be aware of Carey’s condition as of Sunday. Asked about Carey’s experience on the floor, U.S. technical lead Chellsie Memmel replied, “I know because I’ve been with the team, but that’s Jade’s story to tell.”
In qualifying, when four competitors per nation compete on each apparatus and the lowest score is automatically eliminated, Team USA was able to erase Carey’s appalling score on the floor. However, that would not be possible in the team final, which takes place in Paris on Tuesday night. Every nation enters three competitors in each event for the final, and every point matters.
Suni Lee would probably join Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles as Team USA’s three representatives on the floor and vault if Carey is still feeling under the weather on Tuesday. The 16-year-old who completes the team, Hezly Rivera, is anticipated to compete on uneven bars and balancing beam.
About halfway through Sunday’s round, Biles had some soreness in her left calf and had her ankle bandaged. This raised doubts about her status for Tuesday. Nevertheless, Biles kept competing, and her coach, Cecile Landi, stated she is not worried that she won’t be able to do so in the near future.
A gold medal in gymnastics requires more than just talent—a little amount of luck plays a role as well.
American gymnast Jade Carey is the expert in this area, having won the gold medal in the floor exercise three years ago in Tokyo.
But Carey’s luck hasn’t been in her favor this week at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
“I haven’t been able to eat or anything because I haven’t been feeling well,” Carey said in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com on Sunday, the first day of the women’s tournament. Being the sole member of Team USA to address the media, the 24-year-old wanted to reassure her followers that she wasn’t only experiencing nerves.
Prior to this, Carey’s father had not attended Team USA’s official July 25 practice.
“Coach Brian Carey will not be attending women’s podium training today due to illness. He’ll be joining the team again soon,” the federation tweeted.
It’s possible that you are jet lagged, that you didn’t get enough sleep, and that random events occur. The news that she hasn’t been feeling well is really heartbreaking,” three-time Olympic champion Aly Raisman said to us. “I hope she understands what a fantastic job she performed.
That’s why it’s so amazing that she managed to perform at that level even though she claimed to have been sick and hadn’t eaten in a few days.”
Carey, who struggled on her last tumbling pass, is presently ranked second in the vaulting rankings after completing a double-twisting Yurchenko and a Cheng vault, with an average of 14.433. She will very likely proceed to the equipment final there.
