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2012 British Olympic team reserve Danusia Francis, who now represents Jamaica, told IG she is confident she can qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games through a good performance at this fall’s World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

“Unfortunately Jamaica is not strong to qualify a team yet, but maybe in the future,” said Francis at the March 16 meet at UCLA, for which she competed from 2012-16. “At the moment I’m looking to qualify as an individual, so I would have to be the highest-scoring Jamaican at the World Championships and come in the top certain percentage. As long as I have a good competition, I know that’s within my reach.”

Francis, whose father is Jamaican, began competing for Jamaica in 2015 after contemplating her prospects for the 2020 Games.

“Loads of people were asking me, ‘Are you going to make a comeback? Are you going to go for Tokyo?’ ” she said. “It literally hadn’t even crossed my mind, but then I thought, ‘I have nothing stopping me and I would love to go to Tokyo, and I need to give it a shot.’”

Francis said she was also influenced to resume her international career by the perspective on life shared by UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field.

“That’s something Miss Val taught me — give it a shot,” said Francis, who trains under coaches Vince and Michele Walduck, and Natalia Ilienko-Jarvis, at Heathrow Gymnastics Club in London. “You have one life to live — don’t live with regrets.”

Francis said she enjoys performing novelty skills such as her dismount combination on balance beam, which consists of a side aerial across the beam into a full twist. She competed this combination at UCLA and restored it to her international routine following a rules change that now credits it.

“Before, you had to have a certain value dismount, but now they’ve changed the rule and the rule is that you have to count your dismount,” said Francis, who has worked as a stuntwoman and doubled for Rita Ora at the 2017 MTV European Music Awards where she performed a somersault into a car. “So I count a full twist, which is the second part of the dismount. I think it’s worth it, having the first part into it, because it’s such a crowd-pleaser and the judges never see it. I’ve competed it a few times now and I’ve gotten the reward back, so it’s really cool.”

Francis also plans to compete a side aerial into a momentary manual hold at the Superstars of Gymnastics event on March 23 at The O2 Arena in London.

“I played with that a little bit and we did send it to the Code of Points to submit it, but they said I would have to hold it for three seconds after to get it named,” she said. “That’s a bit hard, especially under the pressure of a World Championships or other competitions where you can get skills named. So I’m going to do it at Superstars of Gymnastics. I’ll do it there because it will be a crowd-pleaser.”

Francis said her view of gymnastics has changed as she extends her career towards Tokyo.

“As an adult doing gymnastics, I have a completely different perspective,” she said. “It’s more like quality over quantity when it comes to training. Recovery is key.”

Faced with an occasional wane in enthusiasm, Francis said she relies on lessons learned from Kondos Field to keep her motivated.

“When it comes to the days when I maybe don’t want to train, I take on what Miss Val taught me, and that is that I get to do this,” she told IG. “When she was going through chemo (therapy for breast cancer), she was always like, ‘It’s not that I have cancer, it’s that I get to recover from it.’ That’s an outlook on life that I’ve taken on from her. I look at it like get to do gymnastics today.”

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UCLA senior Katelyn Ohashi has become a pop-culture phenomenon thanks to her joyous floor exercise routine that has has earned 117 million views and counting, but she intends to use her recent multimedia platform to better not only herself but the world.

Through her appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and elsewhere, Ohashi has been open and vocal on the self-doubt and even self-hatred she suffered and has gradually overcome. She continues to reconcile her troubled past as she poises herself for altruistic ventures beyond the gym.

Since Ohashi’s 10.0-scoring routine at a January 12 meet went viral, it has become the most-watched sports video on social media so far this year. Janet Jackson, Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jesse Jackson and Troy Aikman are among the celebrities who have shared it.

Featured on the IG cover three times during her elite career, Ohashi finished first all-around at the 2011 U.S. junior championships, the ’12 Pacific Rim junior championships and the ’13 American Cup. She began competing for UCLA in the 2015-16 season. As a junior she shared the ’18 NCAA floor exercise title with another Michael Jackson-themed routine that went viral and enjoyed 90 million views.

IG spoke with Ohashi at Pauley Pavilion following her latest 10.0-scoring floor routine against Utah State University on March 16, her final home meet for UCLA.

IG: Was there a moment at which you finally accepted your past and yourself, and all the things that had been confusing and tormenting you?

KO: It’s been a really long process over the past four years, and I would say I started accepting it a lot in my sophomore year more so. Over last summer I had this crazy experience spiritually, and learning to forgive, move on and heal. All of it came together and I would say that was kind of the moment when I realized I was compartmentalizing a lot and there was still stuff I needed to deal with, and so a lot of it happened then.

IG: How are you coping with not only all the media attention you’ve been getting, but knowing you are contributing to bigger crowds at home and away meets? That is a lot of pressure.

KO: I don’t see it as pressure. Miss Val (UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field) says we have to be grateful for all the people that are here, and really thanking all of them. How I entertain is my gratitude for everyone, and I go with the same every single time, which is to have as much fun as possible.

Read the complete interview in the 2019 May issue of International Gymnast.

To subscribe to the print and/or digital edition, or to order back issues of International Gymnast magazine, click here.