After all five subdivisions of the women's artistic gymnastics qualification round concluded, Jade Carey was on the outside looking in. The top 24 gymnasts in the all-around would advance to the final, but only two per country could contend for the individual medals. Carey finished in ninth behind Simone Biles and Suni Lee which initially meant she was bumped from the final, but Biles recently withdrew from the all-around competition. As the next highest-scoring American, Carey now gets to compete.
The 21-year-old took an unconventional path to Tokyo, qualifying as an individual through competing in and winning international World Cup events rather than being a member of the four-person team. Carey is known for her powerful vaults and extremely difficult tumbling passes on floor exercise. She is favored to win medals on those events in individual finals that occur next week, and she has teased a tumbling skill on floor that will be named after her if she performs it in competition. The laid-out triple-double, which is a straight-body version of the tucked skill Biles does as her first tumbling pass, has never been attempted in competition and would be rated as the most difficult skill in men's and women's gymnastics if Carey executed it successfully. She has not yet shown it at the Olympics.
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To make the podium in the all-around, Carey will have to outscore strong contenders like Lee, Brazil's Rebeca Andrade, and Russian Angelina Melnikova. Other gymnasts worth watching including Vladislava Urazova (ROC), Tang Xijing (CHN), Nina Derwael (BEL) and Mai Murakami (JPN).
