PHOENIX (AP) — For those who have competed — or nearly competed — under the Olympic rings, the fear of missing out the next time the Games beckon is real. Regardless of the venue. Regardless of the sport.
Athletes who try to run it back following a lengthy sabbatical (and in some cases, a lengthy retirement) is hardly new. The list is filled with household names, from Mark Spitz to Michael Phelps. From Lindsey Vonn to Simone Biles. And on and on and on.
Still, the steady drip figures to be more of a deluge as Los Angeles 2028 approaches. The inherent pull of the Games combined with the chance to compete at home on the world stage under the white-hot spotlight only the Olympics provide is already proving too tempting to ignore for a generation of American stars who have racked up medal after medal on seemingly every other continent but their own.
Track icon Allyson Felix is mounting a return in her early 40s. Six-time Olympic medalist and 2020 Olympic gymnastics all-around champion Suni Lee (with documentary crew in tow) announced last month she's started training for a shot at her third Games. Two-time Olympic gold medalist Jade Carey is already back, winning the vault and finishing fifth in the all-around at the U.S. championships over the weekend.
Asked how much of a factor the chance to do her thing on American soil played into her decision as she enters her late 20s, Carey just smiled.
“I probably would have gone for it regardless,” said Carey, who will be 28 when the flame is lit at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. “But it does make it a little extra special that it’s in the U.S.”
Or maybe a lot more special. Oh, and conceivably a lot more lucrative too.
The media landscape has shifted dramatically since the 1996 Games in Atlanta. The rise of social media allows athletes to easily tell their stories directly to new audiences, and the ability to create and curate their own brand opens sponsorship opportunities that didn't exist a generation ago.
Finding your way onto the medal stand at the Olympics anywhere in the world can make you a hero. Doing it in the States, however, can turn you into a legend. Mary Lou Retton, Mike Eruzione and Kerri Strug know how that goes.
Longtime agent Sheryl Shade, whose list of clients over the last 30 years has included a “who's who” of Olympians, from gymnasts Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson to soccer pioneer Mia Hamm and figure skater Tara Lipinski, called the opportunities for athletes to capitalize on success in Los Angeles “exponentially” greater than any Games that have come before.
“It’s going to be long-range too,” Shade said. “Because now it doesn’t end at the Olympic Games. That's why LA is so important. This is about legacy.”
Look no further than “The Magnificent Seven” for proof. Three decades ago, the members of the 1996 U.S. women's Olympic gymnastics team walked onto the floor of the Georgia Dome for the team final as underdogs. They walked off it with gold medals around their necks, their lives forever altered.
“I mean, we all knew that was going to be special,” team captain Amanda Borden said.
Even if they had no idea how special at the time. While the group, all teenagers that summer, eventually retired and went on with their lives, to this day they get stopped by fans who remember where they were that memorable July night when the injured Strug gingerly stuck her vault landing to secure gold for the Americans.
They've lived the dream. In some ways, they're still living it. So no, they're not surprised that so many who've “already been there, done that” want to give it another shot.
“I can promise (for) every athlete that makes the team, this Olympics will be one of the greatest moments of their careers,” seven-time Olympic medalist Shannon Miller said.
Her advice to anyone considering it: go for it, even if things don't work out exactly as you planned.
Miller decided less than a year before the 2000 Games in Sydney to give it one final shot at age 23 — considered ancient for a gymnast at the time, though not so much anymore. An injury at the Olympic trials ended that dream. Miller has no regrets, and a quarter century later it's considered largely a footnote for the most-decorated American women's gymnast not named Biles.
Still, the attempt comes with considerable risk to both your mental and physical health. For every athlete that makes it, there will be countless others that don't. And for those that do, the burden to succeed will be ratcheted up to a level they've likely never experienced.
Dominique Moceanu, the youngest member of the Magnificent Seven, described it as a “double-edged sword.”
“You have to understand that it will be probably the biggest moment of your life," Moceanu said. “Whether it’s because you put it on yourself or you feel the enormity of the weight of the country and the expectations. That does something to people, right?”
It does. Biles brought the discussion around mental health to the forefront of the Games in Tokyo when she removed herself from multiple nights of competition to protect herself while dealing with “the twisties.”
She took some time off before returning in 2023, capping the perhaps final chapter of her career — Biles remains noncommittal about her future — by winning a second all-around gold in Paris a year later.
Skye Blakely watched Biles' triumph from afar after her bid to make the 2024 Olympic team ended when she tore her right Achilles while training at the Olympic trials, three years after her outside shot at making the 2021 squad ended with an elbow injury at the same meet.
While she's just 21, Blakely is also an old soul in many ways, one who has grown more acquainted with disappointment than she ever imagined. She's well-versed in what it costs to make it, and what happens on the other side when you don't.
That has not stopped her from throwing herself into the mix once again. When describing why she continues to press on, and Blakely sounds like so many American athletes across the spectrum — regardless of their resume — who feel the Games' unique gravitational pull.
“Having a dream is always a risk if you’re going to go after it,” she said before finishing seventh in the all-around at the U.S. championships, her first elite all-around meet in two years. “And I feel like the want for that dream has to be more than being afraid of that risk. And for me it is.”
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