Gymnast Jade Carey of the United States said that she has been battling an unidentified ailment lately, attributing her uncharacteristically subpar performance on floor exercise to the illness during Sunday’s gymnastics qualifying round at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Carey, 24, revealed the sickness to Olympics.com, saying she hasn’t “been able to eat or anything” for the past three days. She wanted to come clean so fans wouldn’t think she was just nervous. Her father and coach, Brian Carey, missed the team’s podium practice on Thursday due to illness, as USA Gymnastics had previously disclosed.
Carey told Olympics.com, “I had, like, no energy today and didn’t really have a sense of what was going on in my head.” “So, I just kind of wanted people to know that so, they know that there’s actually something wrong.”
“I haven’t been feeling the best the past few days, but I gave it everything I had today,” Carey continued on X, formerly known as Twitter. I appreciate all of your help that I have had. I’m really appreciative.”
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In the mixed zone, Carey and the other members of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team did not pause to answer questions from reporters.
Carey competed in two events Sunday: Floor exercise and vault. She was terrific on the latter, recording an average score of 14.433 across two attempts that should be high enough to carry her into the eight-woman final on the apparatus. But she struggled significantly on floor, the event in which she won Olympic gold at the 2021 Tokyo Games.
On many tumbling attempts, the Oregon State product skipped out of bounds. On her final pass, she tumbled onto her back and nearly fell off the mat. Her final execution score was an astonishingly low 6.433 out of 10, with nine tenths of a point deducted. After the first two qualifying sessions, she finished dead last with an overall floor exercise score of 10.633, which was nearly 3.5 points below her average from the U.S. Olympic trials, which took place about a month ago.
Employees at USA Gymnastics seemed to be aware of Carey’s condition as of Sunday. Asked about Carey’s experience on the floor, U.S. technical lead Chellsie Memmel replied, “I know because I’ve been with the team, but that’s Jade’s story to tell.”
In qualifying, when four competitors per nation compete on each apparatus and the lowest score is automatically eliminated, Team USA was able to erase Carey’s appalling score on the floor. However, that would not be possible in the team final, which takes place in Paris on Tuesday night. Every nation enters three competitors in each event for the final, and every point matters.
Suni Lee would probably join Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles as Team USA’s three representatives on the floor and vault if Carey is still feeling under the weather on Tuesday. The 16-year-old who completes the team, Hezly Rivera, is anticipated to compete on uneven bars and balancing beam.
About halfway through Sunday’s round, Biles had some soreness in her left calf and had her ankle bandaged. This raised doubts about her status for Tuesday. Nevertheless, Biles kept competing, and her coach, Cecile Landi, stated she is not worried that she won’t be able to do so in the near future.
