'I Want To Be Like Them:' Team USA Inspires Young Female Gymnasts

Team USA took home the gold for Women's Gymnastics Tuesday at the 2024 Olympics in Paris and the effects are being felt right here at home.

Star gymnast Simone Biles' comeback after a public battle with mental health inspires one young female athlete right here in the metro.

“I tell myself 'to just breathe'. You know how to do the skill, so just do it,” Kylie Pollock said.

She’s a level 8 gymnast at Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy.

She might not be an Olympian, but she can still relate to Simone Biles, who took time off after the 2020 Olympics due to a mental block that prevented her from performing complex skills.

“It used to be really easy for me to get skills but this year it’s just I had a mental block and I still do but I’m starting to get my skills back,” Pollock said.

“Try once again it happens,” Pollock’s coach calls to her as she trains on the balance beam.

Pollock said Biles’ comeback inspires her to keep training.

“If she could get through it then I think I could too,” she said.

She is one of many young gymnasts looking up to Team USA.

“They just see the high level, they see the excitement and it just motivates them,” Ben Fox, Bart Conner Gymnastic Academy’s Gymnastics Programs Director, said.

He added that the Olympic win has his athletes fired up.

"Everybody's so excited,” Fox said. “We know what gymnasts do as far as the amount of work and time and effort and dedication and to see them do so well it pays off.”

Fox said not everybody has what it takes to be a gymnast.

“You gotta be a little bit of a daredevil to be in gymnastics because they do some pretty crazy stuff,” Fox said. “It takes a lot of discipline.”

The athletes must perform skills multiple times to get them right, giving a whole new meaning to “practice makes perfect.”

“I learned it’s okay to have mental blocks but you just gotta ... push through it,” Pollock said.

Pollock has big aspirations for her gymnastics career.

“I want to be like them and go to the Olympics,” she said.

And with every practice, she’s one step closer.

The staff at the gymnastics gym expect an influx of athletes like Pollock this season after the performance of gymnasts in the 2024 Olympics.

Fox says they’re grateful to see Women’s Gymnastics in the spotlight once again.