Jade Carey’s ever-radiant persona may never reveal the challenges she faced last year when making a career-defining decision. She had to choose whether to continue both elite and college gymnastics, a choice that took a serious toll on her physically and mentally. The Arizona native had to live up to her Tokyo Olympics floor exercise victory in subsequent competitions, facing enormous expectations. Unfortunately, the results were disappointing.
In the 2023 US Championships, Jade Carey ranked 15th in the all-around, while her signature floor exercise event saw her finishing in 11th place—a result she had never faced before. Now, she has decided to open up about those experiences. On Wednesday, Jade shared many behind-the-scenes moments and expressed her emotions during that challenging time. Expressing her emotions in that situation, the 24-year-old gymnast added, “I was like, ‘I don’t know if I made the right decision because I was left off the worlds team and I didn’t have a great year in elite.” Notably, the 15th place or 11th place finish could never help Jade Carey in finding a place in the US national gymnastics team in the women’s category for the upcoming World Artistic Gymnastics Championships contest.
However, she had her turn in the 2023 Swiss Cup, scheduled on November 5, in Zurich. But her dismissal from the world championship team was there to keep her reeling. Remember, she has seven medals from that global contest, including three golds. So, missing such a high-profile contest before the Paris Olympics year was going to hurt her. As a result, Jade Carey started to question everything. “I started to kind of second-guess myself and my gymnastics”, as she mentioned in the same press conference in Corvallis on Wednesday.
