UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi’s flawless floor routine breaks the internet – ‘a 10 isn’t enough’
- Katelyn Ohashi goes viral with gravity-defying flips and killer dance moves
- With sheer joy and sassy confidence, 21-year-old American student earns perfect score from judges
As the first strains of Tina Turner’s Proud Mary filled the Anaheim Arena on Saturday, Katelyn Ohashi came alive.
Executing a quick body roll with a giant smile plastered across her face, it was clear the 21-year-old UCLA gymnast was in her element, as she kicked off her high-energy floor routine with a massive tumbling pass that ended in a flawlessly stuck landing.
In about one minute and 30 seconds, Ohashi stunned the crowd, coaches, teammates and judges, earning a perfect score for an electrifying performance full of gravity-defying flips, killer dance moves and a healthy dose of sassy confidence that has since gone viral with many heralding it as one of the best floor routines they have ever seen.
But perhaps the most notable feature of Ohashi’s routine was the sheer joy she exuded, which starkly contrasted the revelations she made this August about her decision to step back from her Olympic dreams several years ago after the sport left her “broken”.
“A 10 isn’t enough for this floor routine by @katelyn_ohashi,” the UCLA Gymnastics official Twitter account tweeted on Sunday, sharing a video of Ohashi’s stellar showing at the Collegiate Challenge, where the UCLA Bruins earned first place. As of early Monday morning, the video of the routine had been viewed more than 13 million times.
For Ohashi, a one-time Olympic hopeful, viral fame is nothing new. At the 2018 Pac-12 Gymnastics Championships, she moonwalked her way to the title of NCAA floor champion with a Michael Jackson-themed routine that now has more than 4 million views on YouTube.
Coming into this year’s season, UCLA Coach Valorie Kondos Field told the Los Angeles Times that the big question was, “How are we gonna top that?”