SKINNER Mykayla

General
COLLEGE CAREER
She chose to attend university after a period as an elite athlete. "It was in college where I rediscovered my love for the sport after everything I went through as an elite gymnast. We had to be perfect at all times [as an elite], which doesn't make sense because in gymnastics you need to fail and make mistakes to get better. But if you fell at [a national] camp, the reaction was, 'we don't want you anymore'. It made me hate gymnastics, but it's just what you did if you wanted to be on the Olympic team." At the end of her 2018/19 academic year she chose to defer her senior year at the University of Utah to focus on selection for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. She began training at Desert Lights Gymnastics in Chandler, AZ, United States of America. She deferred for a further year after the Games were postponed. In 2021 she announced that she would not be returning to compete for the University of Utah, instead choosing to turn professional for the 2020 Olympic Games and then retiring from competitive gymnastics. She will still complete her academic degree. "The Olympics this summer [2021] will mark my last gymnastics competition before I officially retire. I am not getting any younger and my body definitely needs a rest after this last comeback." (thegymter.net, 02 Feb 2021; utah.edu, 02 Aug 2019; sltrib.com, 04 Jul 2021; utahutes.com, 03 Jul 2021; elle.com, 08 Jun 2021; azcentral.com, 01 Jul 2021; deseret.com, 03 Jul 2021)

MOTIVATION
She was named as an alternate for the United States of America team at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. "The whole time I was in Rio, I probably cried every single night. The Olympics should be something so special, but I feel like it was definitely miserable at times. It was really hard to enjoy being an alternate. With this comeback [for the 2020 Olympic Games], that has pushed me so hard just because I was so close." (olympics.nbcsports.com, 03 Jul 2020)