What UCLA gymnastics star Katelyn Ohashi is doing next

LOS ANGELES — Katelyn Ohashi ended a gymnastics career that started when she was 3 years old and slipped back into regular student life seamlessly.

The day after UCLA’s third-place finish in the NCAA championships, the senior tried to take her laptop in for repairs to only find the shop closed on Easter Sunday. She went to a three-hour class on Monday. She procrastinated on homework by scrolling through social media and found that her final floor routine ever, which earned a 9.95, was catching a second wave of attention.

Then it hit her.

“It’s been literally one hell of a career,” Ohashi said last week, smiling at the good fortune.

Good timing

The end of one career opens the door to the next for Ohashi. Her life after gymnastics is muddled, as is the case with many college graduates, but ripe with potential as her star is at an all-time high. Her 15 minutes of fame has already lasted a whole season and she’s hoping to keep it going as she tries to build a platform to advocate on wide-ranging issues from body shaming to domestic violence to female empowerment.

It’s the post-gymnastics career she had always hoped for, but never knew how to reach. Then a floor routine turned her into the “Perfect 10 Gymnast.”

“(Head coach Valorie Kondos Field) always tells me, you’ve set yourself up for the things you wanted in life and the universe has kind of opened its doors,” Ohashi said. “And it’s crazy how timing works as well, because last year if all this would have happened to me — it’s not like I would have been horrible with it — but I would not be nearly as ready as I am this year.”

It would have been almost impossible to be prepared for Ohashi’s rise. Her routine went viral in mid-January, but the excitement lasted all season. In February, UCLA performed in front of record-setting road crowds at Stanford and Washington. In March, Ohashi appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine in its “women shaping the future” issue, and the next week, a program-record 12,907 packed Pauley Pavilion for a dual meet against Stanford. In April, a record-setting 8,595 watched the NCAA gymnastics championship in Fort Worth, Texas.

Ohashi eagerly signed dozens of autographs after the meet.

“It was way bigger than me,” Ohashi said.

Ohashi was ready for the moment in the spotlight, she said, because she is “a stronger person this year than I was last year.” She found her strength from her teammates, who proved instrumental in navigating a chaotic senior season.

“I shut my close friends out (last year) and this year, it was in my conscious decisions that these are people I’m going to want to be friends with for the rest of my life,” Ohashi said. “These are my soul sisters, this is my family.”

She’ll miss many things about gymnastics — performing, competing, the attention she’s grown accustomed to, she admits sheepishly — but most of all, she’ll miss her teammates.

Multi-dimensional human

Ohashi was a star in gymnastics long before she dominated the internet with a Michael Jackson-inspired routine. She won her first — and only — senior elite competition at 15 and was easily recognized for her high degree of difficulty.

Now people know her for more than just the full-twisting back layout she once completed on beam.

“Somebody came up to me at the (championship) meet and said ‘This shirt’s for you,’ and it’s about body shaming and owning who you are,” Ohashi said. “It’s so crazy to hear just how much my voice and speaking my truth has impacted people.”

Ohashi read a poem about body shaming on “Good Morning America” in the immediate aftermath of her viral fame. Her poems relate to personal topics like sexual assault, domestic violence and body image, and she hopes to publish a book of them in the future.

Ohashi relishes the ability to be recognized as more than a gold-medal-winning, tumbling machine now. She is in high demand with a summer full of camps and speaking engagements. She will speak in Washington D.C. in June about mental health through a partnership with the Players’ Tribune.

Transformation

The fact that the 22-year-old will try to make public speaking part of her career is a drastic shift from the freshman who couldn’t get through two words without “dying laughing” or speaking so quickly her words would run together, she said.

Now Ohashi has no problem holding court with reporters or speaking on national television and on syndicated radio shows.

The former national team member’s four-year transformation at UCLA is one of the most remarkable in Kondos Field’s tenure, the recently retired head coach says. The senior hopes that sharing how she rediscovered her joy and self-esteem will inspire others to do the same.

“Miss Val always asks us all the time: ‘Would you rather be liked or respected?’” Ohashi said. “You come in as a freshman, you’re like, ‘I want to be liked, duh.’ And then you realize that ‘No, I want to be respected.’ Learning these lessons sooner rather than later, it’s just something that I want to touch on, to be able to help with.”

Much of Ohashi’s speaking inspiration comes from her own experiences. The gender studies major said she previously allowed toxic people to remain in her life, further burying her in a “dark place.” She spent years searching for outside approval, especially from her emotionally abusive coaches. It’s a feeling many young female gymnasts feel, she said.

“We don’t need their approval,” Ohashi said defiantly. “It took me four years to realize that here.”

At the end of her four years, Ohashi reveled in performing for her own joy, not to find validation through gymnastics. As she stepped onto the mat at the NCAA championship for her last competitive routine ever, Ohashi felt serene, she said. She felt light. She felt ready for her next step.

“This ending,” Ohashi said, “has been more than I ever could have asked for.”