And so thank you so much, how are you? I'm good, how are you? Good. So I was wondering if you could talk about your olympic journey? Obviously huge. Congratulations. It's a really big deal. Yeah thank you so much. Um It's been crazy. I think I've been working towards this since I was five years old so just having that dream kind of come true in the past few months has been insane, definitely overwhelming. But it's all starting to settle in and very excited to go to Tokyo. Yeah. And how did you get into rhythmic gymnastics? That's definitely something that not a ton of people do. Yeah definitely. Not a popular sport in the US. No one really knows what I'm talking about when I try to bring it up. Um When I was five I actually went to an open gym just having fun you know with my older sister And They happened to have a rhythmic gymnastics program at that gym actually Julie settling. Was there the 2012 U. S. Olympian. Um so I saw her training and I was just you know so excited when I saw her with her ribbon. So my mom ultimately saw that I really liked it and kept me in classes. That's really cool. So how is the whole process going to work for going the olympics? How is the training Ben? Can you just walk with that process? Yeah for sure. So we're in Israel right now for training camp where we've stayed here for two weeks before we're going to Tokyo and that's for the time change. And because we just recently had a grand prix um here it was just easier to stay here and train then go back to the U. S. Um We've been training around eight hours per day, that's two practices, we start around eight a.m. And go till 12 and then we'll go from three till seven at night and then we have recovery physical therapy time. So it's definitely a lot, it takes up all of my time and my time outside of the gym I'm sent recovering and you know hanging out with my teammates to because these are last month's together. Um And then we're traveling to Tokyo on thursday and we'll start training there with some crazy time change. So yeah looking forward to it. Yeah. So I know you said you really don't have much time outside of training. So how has it been balancing going to the olympics and being a college student? That's something that not many people do. Yeah. So um in the fall the whole zoom situation actually helped me a lot with that because I was able to be in Illinois while training. That's where my gym is training with my teammates and also doing classes online, definitely very difficult and have a lot of time outside of gym in school. Um, in the spring I was able to take fewer classes because competition season started. Um So yeah, I just narrated Down to two classes and I had double training to trainings every day very difficult, but you know, it's been my goal since I was very young, so I just always wanted to go to the end. So you said this has been a goal for a long time when you first started at that gym, when you just walked into an open gym, did you ever think you would become an Olympian one day? Oh, definitely not from the beginning, you know, I was just doing it because I loved it. Um Obviously the olympic, This is something that I think every athlete thinks about eventually in their career, but from the beginning and up until probably I was 16, I was just you know going into training and competitions because I just loved being there and Performing in front of a crowd. Um but when I was 16 I actually made the ultimate on the Rio team. So then that kind of made everything more real and I was like wow, maybe I could actually go to the olympics. So I started training even harder and here I am in Tokyo, Congratulations! That must be an amazing feeling. How would you describe that feeling in one word when you realized you were going to make this dream come true? Oh my gosh! I'd say just unforgettable. Yeah, that moment when we all found out we were in a hotel room in brazil and we all just started crying because you know so much emotion, so overwhelming, so exciting, so much. Yes, it seems like you travel a lot for the sport, How much do you travel? And how does that tie into everything? Because it must be exhausting. Um So this year has not been as much travel as usual due to Covid, but we were lucky enough to all get vaccinated by the end of april so we were able to start traveling more. Um so we started going internationally kind of probably two competitions per month at that point. Um traveling is really fun with your teammates but it's definitely hard to keep your eye on prize at the same time with all these distractions around you. You know, we're in Israel right now and we want to see all the different fun things to do here, but we gotta keep training and stay in the gym and stay focused. And speaking of traveling, you guys are obviously traveling to Tokyo in a few days, are you or your team kind of worried and stressed about just all of the precautions you have to take even just to get into the country. Yeah, for sure. I mean right now it's kind of average that seven hours once you get to the Tokyo airport to go through all the customs and you know, covid procedures. So it's definitely going to be stressful, definitely going to be a long day after that 12 hour flight as well. So yeah, and these games are looking a lot different than the ones before or um which is sad but we're just happy that they're going through. I totally agree. And so once you get to Tokyo, I know the olympic village is gonna look a lot different. How is that going to feel as an athlete? Um I think, I think um hopefully we'll still get to do as many traditions as possible, but we do have to still stay safe and keep our teammates safe and our families once we come home, so you know, hopefully we can still do the pin trading and all of that and go to the closing ceremony, but we do have to keep in mind that this is just a different, arab than usual and with the opening ceremony just happening yesterday, how did, what did it feel like to be in Israel while watching the opening ceremony? That had to be a weird feeling. Yeah, it was a little strange knowing that we'll be there competing in a couple of days or a couple weeks, but we're watching this from afar. Um you know, but it also made everything seem more real like this is actually happening. We're actually going and we're gonna be there were gonna be in that stadium for the closing ceremony and everything. Yeah, that's exciting. It has to be a surreal feeling to be able to know you're watching on tv and that'll be you very soon. So when is your first competition? So we compete on seven August, we can be Around 10 a.m. Japanese time and then finals are on the 8th. Okay, obviously, good luck with that. That's going to be are you stressed? Like, I know you've been doing this all your life, but it still has to be stressful to be on that level of competition. Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is kind of a stage that I haven't been on ever before in my life. I've been to World Championships and you know, national competitions, but nothing this bay and nothing that will be broadcasted like um definitely nerve racking. But nerves are good. You know, you just have to know how to control them. That's a great way of looking at it. So honestly, I think that's pretty much all I have for you. But thank you so much for being here and taking the time. I really appreciate it. And good luck. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks.