Gymnast Jade Carey Shares Why She Fell During Floor Routine

Athletes aiming for Olympic medals rely not only on their talent and hard work but also on a bit of luck. Without enough of it, even the best athletes can sometimes produce a subpar performance or none at all.

Coco Gauff had to withdraw days before the Tokyo Games in 2020 due to a positive COVID-19 diagnosis.

Jade Carey, currently competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, revealed after suffering a fall during her floor routine at the Women’s Gymnastics Qualifiers on July 28 that she was coming down with an illness.

Shortly after her uncharacteristically poor performance, the 24-year-old told Olympics.com, “I just have not been feeling well the past few days and haven’t been able to eat or anything.”

She aimed to assure fans that the hiccup had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with her health. “I had no energy today and didn’t really have a sense of what was going on in my head,” she continued. “So, I just kind of wanted people to know that there’s actually something wrong.”

Carey competed in two events on Sunday: floor exercise and vault. She was terrific on the latter, recording an average score of 14.433 across two attempts, which should be high enough to carry her into the eight-woman final on the apparatus. However, she struggled significantly on floor, the event in which she won Olympic gold at the 2021 Tokyo Games.

“Not the day I was expecting to have,” Jade shared in her July 28 Instagram post, “but I can’t thank you all enough for the love and support. I am so proud of this team and what we accomplished today. We’re not done yet.”

Despite a struggle on her final tumbling pass, Carey currently sits second in the vaulting standings, having successfully executed a Cheng vault and a double-twisting Yurchenko for a 14.433 average.

She will most likely advance to the apparatus final there. But if Carey is still feeling ill by Tuesday, Suni Lee would likely join Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles as Team USA’s three representatives on both floor and vault.

“One of the hardest things about sports is that no matter how much you prepare, sometimes on the morning of a meet, you might not be feeling well. You might be jet-lagged, you may not have slept well, and fluke things can happen. It’s just so devastating to hear that she hasn’t been feeling well,” said three-time Olympic champion Aly Raisman about Carey. “I hope that she knows that she did an unbelievable job.”

“She should be so proud of herself,” continued Raisman. “Gymnastics is already hard enough when you’re at your peak. So the fact that she said she hasn’t eaten in a few days and has been sick and was able to perform at that level is truly remarkable.”