- American gymnast Jordan Chiles is shifting her focus to 2024 — the year of the Paris Olympics.
- The Olympic silver medalist is physically and mentally preparing to compete for a spot on Team USA.
Jordan Chiles is ready to tackle 2024.
The American gymnast helped Team USA win a silver medal in the team all-around competition at the Tokyo Olympics three summers ago. Now, after two successful seasons of NCAA gymnastics with the UCLA Bruins, she's shifting her focus to earning a spot on Team USA for the upcoming Paris Games.
Her motto?
"Do it for yourself," Chiles told Business Insider.
"I'm going to put myself out there; I'm going to go do this and have an amazing time because I didn't want to regret anything," the 22-year-old said. "I didn't want to look back and be like 'Oh, I could have done that' or 'Oh, I could have been on that podium.'"
"I'd rather try and do everything and give everything and be like 'Whatever happens, happens,'" she added.
Focusing on internal motivation rather than external forces is easier said than done in a sport where, for better or for worse, appearance is a factor in one's success or failure. Chiles said it took her a long time to begin "really embracing who I was" within the gymnastics world, where whiteness and thinness were long the standard.
As she got older, she realized that the idea of having "to change my features and who I am" in order to satisfy others was "kind of crazy." She's since implemented her mom's advice to "embrace something within yourself," but even still, she's not immune to the judgmental comments that come with being a public figure.
"What we do is entertainment, so there's actually a lot of critics out in the world," Chiles said. "There's bullies. There's a lot of people who make fun of the tiniest things."
Before stepping into the spotlight on the world's stage, she had already been insecure about her teeth, which she said were "really, really crooked" when she was a kid. Despite having had braces in her teenage years, Chiles still wasn't fully satisfied with her smile as she entered adulthood.
So in the lead-up to 2024, she sought to make a change.
"I love being in front of the camera all the time, especially knowing that with my sport, we take photos, we always are doing interviews," Chiles said. "And I just wanted my smile to be a little better so I could actually enjoy being out there."
She partnered with Invisalign, who coordinated the interview, and in the final months of 2023, embarked on the process of straightening her teeth. She even shared the first steps of the process on her social media.
"I wanted to do this for myself," Chiles said. "I know, yes, I'm beautiful; yes, I have this amazing smile. But I want it to be perfected even more so I can show people 'No, you didn't tell me to do this. I told myself to do this.'"
She's carrying that same mentality into the competition for a spot in Paris next summer. She knows that nothing is certain and that "I can only control myself."
"Look, it goes back to do it for yourself," Chiles said. "'24 was something that I was just like 'You know what? I'm going to go for it. I'm going to put everything that I have.'"