American gymnast Skye Blakely’s long road to the top ends with gold at the world championships

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Skye Blakely kept going. Through heartbreak. Through injury. Through doubt. Through all of it.

The American gymnast never gave up on herself, not after her dreams of Olympic glory ended one step short of a lifelong goal not once, but twice. Not after “shutting down” at times mentally as she wondered if it was all worth it.

The 21-year-old from Dallas kept faith in herself and in the process. She took two years off from competing in the all-around at the elite level after tearing her right Achilles at the 2024 Olympic trials, opting to patiently and painstakingly rebuild her body and her routines until she felt they were ready, and not a moment before.

That moment arrived on Friday at the 2026 world gymnastics championships, when Blakely put together four polished and confident routines that ended with happy tears and an all-around gold medal around her neck that even she didn’t see coming.

“Throughout the meet, I was telling myself, ‘Do it for the girl in 2021 and the girl in 2024 who couldn’t do everything, just fight for her,’” Blakely told reporters after posting a total of 55.733, more than a half-point ahead of silver medalist Liudmila Roschina of Russia and bronze medalist Ke Qinqin of China. “That’s what I kept telling myself: ‘I am capable, I am ready’ and I made every version of myself extremely proud.”

And maybe a bit surprised. Blakely was a prodigy in 2021 when she injured her elbow at Olympic trials. She was a semi-longshot then to make the team. She wasn’t in 2024. Blakely was in excellent position to head to Paris before shredding her Achilles during training the day before the start of the competition.

Rather than rush back, Blakely took her time, competing usually as an event specialist at the University of Florida. She did the all-around for the first time in two years at the U.S. championships in August but ran out of gas on the final day of the meet.

Not this time.

Two days after the U.S. saw its long run of gold medals in the team finals at worlds end with a second-place finish to resurgent China, Blakely became the ninth American woman to win her sport’s biggest annual title.

“It truly means the world to me, knowing how much I have overcome, all of the hardship that I faced and the days that I wanted to give up or didn’t think it was possible,” Blakely said. “To see it really come to be tonight is just, it makes me so proud of myself and makes me reflect on little me who would dream of this.”

Taking the floor two nights after the U.S.’s long gold-medal run in the team finals ended for a variety of reasons — from China’s brilliance on beam to some uncharacteristic miscues on the same event by the Americans, Blakely included — she responded with the best meet of her life. So far, anyway.

When Blakely headed to beam on Friday for the third rotation, she was atop the leaderboard after an excellent start on vault followed by a bars routine that’s as good as anything done by an American at the moment.

Still, beam is different, a 75-second test of nerves. There were no missed connections this time, as there were in the team final. There were rarely any wobbles either. Blakely’s score of 14.200 kept her in front and turned her floor exercise largely into a victory lap.

The tears after she saluted the judges following a routine set to music personally curated by Blakely — including the instrumental from “Show Me What You Got” by rap icon Jay-Z — were real. So were the ones when her spot atop the sport became official about 15 minutes later.

Blakely then draped the American flag over her back while posing for the cameras, drinking in a moment a long time coming in more ways than one.

Algerian Kaylia Nemour’s bid to become the first gymnast from Africa to win an all-around title at worlds ended with a fourth-place finish. The 19-year-old’s finals got off to a rough start in her first rotation when her feet didn’t land squarely on the springboard while vaulting, forcing her to do a simpler vault that cost her valuable points.

While Nemour recovered spectacularly, thanks in large part to an uneven bars routine that is one of the hardest routines done on any apparatus by any gymnast — male or female — in the world, it wasn’t quite enough to reach the podium.

American Claire Pease’s hopes of joining Blakely on the medal stand ended when she hopped off beam on her way to a seventh-place finish.

While the picture figures to get considerably more crowded in the next two years ahead of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, Blakely’s perseverance and talent have thrust her into the conversation once again.

“I think it for sure sets me up and boosts my confidence for sure,” she said. “Especially knowing I have more to give.”

Canada’s Ellie Black of Halifax finished 16th in the women’s all-around final with 52.532 points, while Lia Grace Redick of Oakville, Ont., was 24th with 48.231.

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The Associated Press