Gymnastics

Livvy Dunne is in a “cute lil jammy set Santa got me” when she answers questions from some of her 3.7 million adoring Instagram fans. You’ve probably never heard of her unless you spend a lot of time on TikTok. But twenty-year-old Olivia Paige Dunne is now the highest-valued women's college athlete, with an estimated net worth of $3.3 million. And fair play to her: at twenty years old, I was working for minimum wage as a waitress. I know very little about college sports or gymnasts such as Livvy, but nowadays having 7.1 million TikTok followers, as she does, means something. If she were to never partake in another event, she could still bring in a monthly salary far higher than most. https://www.tiktok.

Just a few days before the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, my mom and I watched the gymnastics comedy Stick It. The movie is about a star gymnast fighting for redemption after dropping out of a World Championship right before the floor event. Reality seemed to mirror fiction on Tuesday when Simone Biles, the star of the US gymnastics team who is widely considered the greatest gymnast of all time, withdrew from competition during the Olympic team final. Biles botched her vault attempt, not performing the full trick she planned to do and taking a huge step upon landing, before being led away from the floor by a team trainer.