Former Missouri gymnast and five-time WCGA All-American Amari Celestine has announced her intention to train for the LA 2028 Olympics.
Celestine, who finished second on vault at the 2022 NCAA Championships, told the All Things Gymnastics Podcast that she plans to train exclusively on vault and floor.
“I know my strengths, and bars and beam are not my strengths,” Celestine said. “I feel like I could do a lot more positive damage on vault and floor.”
After helping her team to a historic third-place finish at the NCAA Championships in April, Celestine retired, content with how her college career ended.
She moved back home to California and began transitioning into what she called “NARP life” — short for non-athletic regular person.
Then, in August, while coaching at a summer camp in Maine, a group of coaches encouraged her to consider training again. Since she already excelled on vault and floor, they suggested she could focus on those two events and make a run for LA 2028.
At first, she thought it was a joke. Then she thought it might be possible. The idea of it didn’t even scare her.
“I was supposed to take a week or two to really make my decision, but it was the fact that I wasn’t completely terrified, or it wasn’t an immediate no for me — like I was OK with coming back, I was excited off the rip,” Celestine said. “We had only talked about it for a few hours, and I’m already calling my mom and telling her, ‘Hey, I have this opportunity. I’m really excited about it.’”
One of the coaches at the camp, Cliff Parks, just so happened to be from California and offered to train Celestine at her former club gym, SCEGA.
Celestine began training to go down the elite path as a child, but ultimately put her elite aspirations to the side to pursue doing college gymnastics.
Now, at 22 and with her college career behind her, she’s ready to take the leap.
“It was always my dream to go to the Olympics,” Celestine said. “I’ve always wanted to do it. Now it just seems like an opportunity presented itself, and I’m gonna go with it. I’m gonna take it.”
Seeing other athletes extend their elite careers into their 20s helped Celestine believe that anything is possible.
“I know comparing is the enemy of success, but in this case, I feel like it really has helped me come to terms with the fact that I am more than capable of achieving these goals,” Celestine said. “At the end of the day … it’s just going to be myself that holds me back from doing that. I have the motivation, I have the drive, I have the skill level. I just need to put everything together.”
Celestine hopes to qualify elite at the Kentucky Winter Classic and Elite National Qualifier in Louisville, Kentucky, on Feb. 19-20.
For more on Amari Celestine’s new elite journey, listen to her interview on the All Things Gymnastics Podcast.