International Gymnast - October 2011

Nine time zones to the east, Aliya Mustafina, Viktoria Komova and Anastasia Grishina, arguably the world’s best 17-, 16- and 15-year- old gymnasts, respectively, are dreaming of glory at the 2012 Olympics. But here in the heart of Texas is Katelyn Ohashi, gymnastics’ top 14- year-old, training for her own chance in the spotlight.

Ohashi was flipping even before she
was born April 12, 1997, in Seattle. “My mom
always says I was doing cartwheels when I was in
her stomach,” she says with a grin. “And when I
was little I was always doing backbends and vault-
ing over the couch, so she decided to put me in
gymnastics when I was 3.”
She began the sport at Gymnastics East in
Bellevue, Wash., advancing through Level 6 with
coaches Kim Thompson and Susan Brown.

“We were happy but it just didn’t have the elite program,” says Ohashi, who has older brothers

Ryan, 28, Kyle, 22, and Kalen,

16. “Al Fong was from Seattle
so he came and evaluated me
and we ended up moving.”
At age 9, Ohashi, her mom
Diana (former high school gym-
nast) and brother Kalen moved to
Blue Springs, Mo., to train with
Fong and his wife, Armine
Barutyan-Fong, at Great Amer-
ican Gymnastics Express. Father
Richard, a second-generation Jap-
anese-American, stayed in Wash-
ington, where he works for Seattle
City Light.

Ohashi shot up the levels, competing as a Level 8 in 2007. She won the Level 9 Western national championships in 2008 before qualifying as an elite at age 12 in 2009.

She made the U.S. junior national team after finishing 10th at the 2009 nationals in Dallas. That competition was her final for GAGE; she stayed in Texas and immediately began training at WOGA.

Though Liukin was supposed to have the day off, he shows up anyway an hour into practice. He couldn’t stay away, and one of the reasons is Ohashi’s bars. She’s been making progress on her new combination of Ono turn to a Jaeger. He doesn’t want to lose even one day.

“She’s gotta get that Ono,”
he says firmly.

After all his phenomenal success at WOGA, including coaching daughter Nastia to the Olympic all-around title in 2008, Liukin deserves a day off. Nobody could fault the man if he took a year off. But the same competitive fire that spawned the first triple back on floor exercise is still burning inside Valeri Liukin. He’s already accomplished just about everything in the sport as an athlete and a coach, but it’s his gymnasts who draw him back to the gym each day. There is still much for them to accomplish, and he wants to help them achieve it all.

“For Katelyn, the sky’s the
limit. Nothing less,” he says.
“I’m not exaggerating one sin-

Ohashi began gymnastics in
her native Washington (top
right), but now she trains in
the heart of Texas at WOGA.

gle bit. Under very careful coaching, there is
nothing impossible for that kid.”
There is, however, one impossibility: Ohashi
will not compete at the London Olympics next
summer. There will no doubt be a few 15-year-
old gymnasts in London, but Ohashi won’t be
one of them. She is officially 102 days too young
to compete. While some countries have falsified
their gymnasts’ ages repeatedly—and under the
nose of the FIG, which lacks the ability to prove
age beyond a passport—such a move is an
impossible one for western nations like the
United States.

The age limit rule sickens Liukin and gymnastics fans alike. Ohashi would be a top contender for the U.S. team to London, and an asset on every event. She has the hardest balance beam routine in the world, but nobody will see it on world’s biggest stage next summer. Olympic fans will need to head to YouTube instead to see Ohashi’s standing Arabian into back handspring; two flip-flops into a layout-full; Onodi, front aerial, sheep jump series and the only piked full-in dismount being done today.

That routine, worth 7.0 in Difficulty, nabbed a deserved 16.100 on the first day of the U.S. junior championships, held in August in St. Paul, Minn. Ohashi outscored all gymnasts, junior and senior, in the all-around on the first day of competition with a 60.950. The second day she dropped off beam on her sheep jump, but true to her initials, still KO’d the competition with four gold medals (all-around, uneven bars, beam and floor exercise) and a bronze on vault.