Jade Carey Knows How to Bounce Back
If it weren’t such an extraordinary accomplishment, you might think Jade Carey’s Olympic journey was simply part of the plan. Her parents, themselves former gymnasts, raised Carey in the Phoenix gym they owned together; her father, Brian, remains her coach to this day. She grew up in the gym and committed to Oregon State University, where her father is on staff as an assistant coach, when she was a humble 14 years old. It was Brian who realized early on that, should his young daughter pursue gymnastics into adolescence, she would be—as Carey puts it now—“very good.”
When we speak ahead of the June Olympic team trials, she seems confident and relaxed, familiar with the repetitive patterns of competition. “I was pretty talented and very fearless as a young kid,” she tells me. “I would try anything. As I got older, I started to realize where it could take me if it was something that I was very serious about.”
Of course, where it took her was the Tokyo Olympics. There, she won a gold medal in the floor exercise after a rough performance in the vault final, during which she tripped on her first attempt and ultimately lost her shot at medaling. She hasn’t let the mistake weigh on her, especially after an impressive rally on floor mere hours later. “I often look back and remember that moment, because it reminds me how strong I am and that nothing really defines you,” Carey says. “You can have a bad day, a bad year, a bad few weeks, but you can still bounce back and be who you are. It’s just reminding myself that I never left, and I’m still here, and that I can be as good as I was.”
Carey isn’t simply as good as she was in 2020—she might be better than ever. She traveled to Tokyo as an individual competitor, separate from the prestigious women’s team consisting of Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Grace McCallum. But in Paris, she’ll compete for the first time as part of that team, clasping hands with Biles, Lee, Chiles, and Hezly Rivera. That already makes for intimidating company, but the pressure has spiked as fans cheer a return to form—and, perhaps, a return to gold—for Team USA, who placed second in the team event in 2020.
“I think this is probably the hardest it’s been in a really long time to even make the team,” Carey says. “Winning team gold would mean a lot to us girls who do make the team, because we want to show that we’re stronger than we were before.” She continues, “It’s not always easy to just come together and be a team right away, because we’re from all different gyms around the whole country. But we’ve seen each other enough at camps and have competed against each other at competitions. We all have a common goal.”
At 24, the Phoenix native is aware that—in gymnastics years, anyway—she’s creeping toward retirement age. Her coaches, including her father, are careful to focus on “quality over quantity” when it comes to her workouts, and Carey says she’s “always switching it up, doing something new, doing something fun” to avoid boredom and stagnancy in the gym. Perhaps that’s what lends her such magnetism in both vault and floor competitions: During the Olympic trials, she beat out her teammates to snag first place on vault, and finished the weekend just behind Biles on floor exercise—tossing the audience a rock-on sign and a smirk as she landed her routine.
While training for a second shot at Olympic gold, Carey was also competing in both elite and college gymnastics, the latter as a member of the Oregon State Beavers. Although she’s already recognized as one of the most decorated gymnasts of all time, her 2023 season was “probably my worst year in elite gymnastics ever,” she says, having finished 15th at the U.S. National Championships in the all-around event. “It was scary and stressful to have that happen the year before the Olympics, when you want to be wrapping up and getting to your peak,” she adds. But Carey clawed her way back this year, returning to a top-eight placement at the National Championships and, ultimately, fighting her way to a position on the U.S. Olympic team.
“Right now, I’m feeling really good about where I’m at,” she says, crediting her dad for “pacing me and peaking me at the right time.” She reminds herself multiple times throughout our conversation that she can “do it again,” be “as good as I was,” and “get back to where I wanted to be.”
Perhaps she’ll surprise herself: Maybe her peak is even higher than she’s dared to dream.
Her gymnastics hero
Nastia Liukin is someone I’ve looked up to. Watching her as a little girl, I was so excited that she won the all-around at the Olympics. As I got older, I actually got to know her more, and she’s been able to help me through a lot of situations that she’s been in herself. I’m grateful that gymnastics has given me the opportunity to connect with so many other amazing athletes.
Favorite gymnastics move
If I had to pick one, my favorite would probably be a double-double. It’s just satisfying to watch and to do.
Least favorite gymnastics move
Probably a side aerial along the beam. I mean, [the beam’s] already four inches wide, so anything you do up there is pretty hard.
Her pre-competition routine
The night before, I like to have steak for dinner. I don’t really know how that started or why that became a thing, but it’s a thing now. The morning of competitions, I like to relax, be chill, maybe go on a short walk to get my body moving and my mind elsewhere. We typically compete at night, so we’re waiting all day long when you just want to get up and go. Watching TV, going for a walk, listening to music—literally doing anything that makes me not think about gymnastics.
First call if she wins a gold medal
I would say my dad, but he will most likely be there with me. So I would just say my family back home. I know they’ll all be watching me together—those who won’t be able to make it to Paris—because they’re the people who raised me, who got me to where I am today, and have been there through the highs and the lows in every little thing.
The skill she’d like to be named after
I have to say the triple-double layout on the floor, because I was so close to actually competing that in the [Tokyo] Olympics—that would’ve gotten named after me, if I had landed it successfully. It was definitely a bummer not to be able to do it. Our plan all along was to wait until the floor final to do it. But then, having the day that I had before, my dad could see the bit of hesitation in my mind, and he [said], “What do you want more? Do you want your name in the code of points, or do you want a medal around your neck?” And I was like, “I think I want a medal around my neck.” So I ultimately made the decision to not do [the skill], and it’s definitely not something that I regret, because it worked out for me. A skill that hard is something I didn’t really want to take a chance on.
How she overcomes the “twisties”
It’s something a lot of us go through. A few years ago, I was learning all of these harder elite tumbling passes, and I started to confuse the two harder passes that I was learning. So it resulted in me not knowing where I was in the air and getting really confused. It’s frustrating, because you can see yourself do it in your head, and you know you know how to do it, because you’ve done it before, but your body is not allowing you to. I always handled those situations by taking a step back, going back to the basics, building it back up again, or going into the pit until you feel really 100 percent confident. It is frustrating to have to go backwards, but it is part of this sport.
What she thinks about the future of gymnastics
Now that I’ve competed in college and have seen that really high-energy, fun competition atmosphere, I’m like, that’s the best thing ever. I get that in league gymnastics, we’re doing harder gymnastics, and it is a lot more serious, because we’re trying to do things to make the Olympic team. But I think having it be a little bit less serious would be cool. At the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is already really hard, so why not have a lot of fun doing it? I’m not saying be unfocused or anything like that, but embrace more of that college atmosphere. I do think there has been improvement, but it would be cool to see it keep growing.
If she weren’t a gymnast, she would be…
Oh man, I have no idea. I feel like gymnastics—not in a bad way, but it’s my whole entire life. For a career, I want to be involved in sports or gymnastics in some sort of way. I’m not exactly sure how yet. A big passion of mine is giving back and making an impact and empowering women athletes.
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