A Must-See Gymnast, and the Meaning of Joy - Mocha Moment

A Must-See Gymnast,
and the Meaning of Joy
A viral floor routine by UCLA star Katelyn Ohashi
may prove to be the sports highlight of 2019

UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi’s recent floor routine has become a viral
video phenomenon. PHOTO: RICKY LEE/UCLA

78 COMMENTS
By Jason Gay

Jan. 16, 2019 12:01 p.m. ET

Lots of big stuff happening in sports at the moment. We are days away
from one of the most intriguing NFL championship Sundays in ages. The
Golden State Warriors just scored 51 points in the first quarter of a game,
an NBA record. Andy Murray sadly plans to leave tennis because of injury.
Heisman winner Kyler Murray appears to be forsaking baseball for football.
And President Trump held a White House reception for the triumphant
Clemson Tigers, complete with a fast food buffet he paid for, because of the
government shutdown. You may have read a thing or two about that last
one. It was in the news.

But I’d rather move on to another sports moment that people are talking
about this week. They’re thrilled by it, enchanted by it, wonderstruck by it,
moved by it. I played the clip for my wife the other night, and she smiled,
then laughed, then wept. Wept! She usually only does that when I attempt
to sort the recycling. I know we have 11 and a half months to go, but this
clip will be hard to top as the sports highlight of 2019: Katelyn Ohashi.

Ohashi is a 21-year-old UCLA gymnast whose perfect 10 floor routine in a
recent college meet became a viral video phenomenon on par with all the
world’s clumsy kittens, windsurfings dogs and Justin Bieber conspiracies. I
hope by now you’ve had a chance to see it. If you haven’t seen the clip of
Ohashi’s performance, go watch it right now. It’s barely a minute long. I’ll
wait right here.

Katelyn Ohashi - 10.0 Floor (1-12-19)
Katelyn Ohashi’s 10.0 on Floor Exercise

OK, are we good? That was something, wasn’t it? I think there are a
number of reasons why tens of millions of people are responding so
positively—and emotionally—to this. First of all, Ohashi is an incredible
athlete—she does about 20 things in this routine that if an ordinary human
like you or me ever did, we would never stop talking about it for the rest of
our lives. She makes extremely difficult maneuvers like tumbling passes
look as normal as strolling down the sidewalk. I act like I know what I’m
talking about, but I really don’t—I’d be lying to you if I claimed to know the

first thing about gymnastics. The Journal’s Olympic correspondent Louise
Radnofsky had to tell me about tumbling passes. But that speaks even
more to what Ohashi has done—the excellence of her floor routine needs
no translation, even for idiots like me.

There’s also the grim but important context that elite gymnastics in the U.S.
remains a sport in crisis, one where adults and institutions in charge failed
to protect hundreds of athletes from a serial sexual abuser. It is a scandal
devastating in its reach and negligence. But it shouldn’t be allowed to
define the sport. Athletes like Ohashi should.

There are other things that make Ohashi’s performance great. Her music
choices are spectacular—who doesn’t want to listen to some vintage Tina
Turner, Earth Wind & Fire and Jackson 5? Right there, she’s hooked 90%
of the ears on the planet. There’s also the rapt enthusiasm of her UCLA
teammates, who aren’t just cheering supportively for her—they’re
pantomiming elements of her routine along with her, like a rock show
audience chanting back lyrics to a lead singer. You don’t do that for a
teammate if you don’t love them.

There’s also the plain truth that, as sports media, and as a species, we do
a really lousy job of celebrating women athletes, and the wide jubilation
over Ohashi’s routine has reminded of that embarrassing gap.

But here’s the main reason I think people are sharing the Katelyn Ohashi
video: It’s joyful.
It’s so, so joyful. It radiates warmth and glee. There’s a playfulness to her
routine, to be sure—UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field, aka Miss Val, is a
college gymnastics legend for the way she’s injected happiness into a rigid,
often cruel sport—but it isn’t a goof, not at all. What Ohashi is doing is
extremely hard to do. (Louise also helped me on this.)

What Katelyn Ohashi is doing is extremely hard to do. PHOTO: RICKY
LEE/UCLA

This is going to sound pretentious, but whatever: I think Ohashi’s routine is
a radiant expression of what it means for a human being to be very, very
good at something—and to want to share that with everyone. She projects
a confidence that only great performers project, whether Olympic
champions or concert pianists, that every eye is upon them. Instead of
shirking from that, instead of getting rattled, Ohashi rushes toward the
moment. The moment becomes her.

These instances are rare, but they’re really the reason why we watch
sports, aren’t they? Sure, we come up with all kinds of rationalizations for
our sports obsessions—tradition, regional loyalties, very bad bets on the
Minnesota Vikings—but what truly keeps the audience coming back is the
chance that every once in a while, you’ll see a radiant expression of human
greatness and joy. An Odell Beckham Jr. one-handed grab. A Patrick
Mahomes sidearm touchdown pass. Mikaela Shiffrin crushing a turn in the
giant slalom (Shiffrin’s absolutely bananas World Cup season is the most

underappreciated sports story of the moment.) A Roger Federer one-
handed backhand down the line. Pretty much everything Steph Curry does.
Ditto Simone Biles.

Elite gymnastics is a small world, so of course Ohashi and Biles are
connected—Ohashi beat Biles for the all-around title at the 2013 American
Cup, but pressures and repeated injuries nearly drove her from the sport.
(“I was broken,” she told The Players Tribune.)

So I’d like to thank Ohashi for staying with her sport, and for being
awesome. These are volatile, angry days, with outrage real and phony
serving as the currency of our time. It’s the middle of January, and it
already feels like a long year. Every one of us sees 10 things a day that
makes us want to pound our heads against a wall. But not this. Not Katelyn
Ohashi. Thank you for the joy.