As of this month, every member of the Fierce Five is back in training. This is actually such a rare thing. Generally, after an Olympic cycle, many gymnasts retire. But the Fierce Five of 2012 was made up of a number of fairly young gymnasts. All gymnasts whose bodies and stages of life say, why not keep going? So keep going they do! What an exciting thing for gymnastics fans, to have an entire Olympic Team continue on!
Kyla Ross was the first to return to training. She participated in just a few stops on the Kellogg’s Tour of Champions and then returned to training. A first year senior in the Olympic year, Kyla has many more years that she would like to dedicate to gymnastics. She also really wants to do NCAA gymnastics, so the appeal and draw of all the professional and paying opportunities available to her were things she decided to pass up on. She dealt with a small injury this year, but she is training new skills on bars, beam and floor and looks better than ever.
(footage from USA Gymnastics, National Team Camp)
Jordyn Wieber and McKayla Maroney both returned to the gym this spring. McKayla had to wait until she healed from three, count them three surgeries. Jordyn returned after the Kellogg’s Tour. Both seemed to have regained most of their original skills, but are not yet back in routine shape. At this point in the season, that hardly seems to be a problem.
Jordyn did an extensive interview series with Gymnastike. There is a lot of footage of her current training, as well as of John Geddert talking about what going through the Olympics was like. GREAT stuff (you have to have a premium membership to watch it). She talks about having all of her skills back (and the footage shows her to be right on track) and wanting to compete at Nationals this year. However, Triple Twist did a piece about Twistars a bit later, where John stated that because of the many commitments Jordyn has this summer, (graduating from high school, her sisters wedding and graduation from Med school, numerous camp and other types of appearance obligations) she had decided that competing at nationals was not realistic. They have adjusted expectations to returning to competition next year.
However, there is no doubt that McKayla Maroney is back and plans on competing this year. Her recent footage from National Team camp shows her to not only have her old skills back, but that she is working new skills as well. In her interview with USA Gymnastics, she said that she is back in the gym every day for 6 hours and is fully committed to training.
Gabrielle Douglas and Aly Raisman have just recently returned to training and are just starting the process of getting back in shape. As the Olympic Champion, Gabby has been highly sought after for appearances in all manner of things. It is probably realistic that her return will be slow. Though she has committed to being back in the gym, they are not making any statements yet about when a return to competition is likely.
Aly did a season of Dancing with the Stars, where she made the finals. At the American Cup, Aly stated that she would return to training at the end of the summer, however it seems from her tweets that she is back in the gym getting into shape. The intense hours of training that the stars put in on that show has more than likely left her in a more prepared physical condition than most of the other girls were in when they returned to training. However, on twitter she said “After a few hour morning workout with Mihai napping is like the best thing ever. It does feel good to be back though :).” She has made it clear that she wants to stay in gymnastics as long as her body will let her, and has every intention of pursuing Rio in 2016.
Beam Dreams 