Gilbert native MyKayla Skinner is an Olympic silver medalist in the vault event. On Sunday, she secured her spot on the podium after days of thinking she was out of the competition and headed home.
Skinner, who replaced teammate and five-time Rio Olympic medalist Simone Biles on Sunday, trained at Desert Lights Gymnastics in Chandler.
MyKayla has made Gilbert and Arizona very proud! Incredible story https://t.co/1Vl8yOspgv
— Warren Petersen (@votewarren) August 2, 2021
“I was actually going to get on a plane to go home. I wasn’t expecting any of this to happen,” said Skinner, who dubbed herself and Biles the “Old Grandmas” of the U.S. delegation because they’re the oldest at 24 reported the Los Angeles Times. “This has seriously just been so humbling, and I’m just so grateful to be here.”
“Jade Carey of Phoenix had an unfortunate experience in the vault final,” reported the Times. “She tripped during her run-up and saved herself from injury on sheer instinct, doing a simple warmup-caliber vault. Shaken, she landed her second vault badly and averaged 12.416 to finish eighth.”