The road to Paris

Meet the Dallas gymnasts competing at Olympic Team Trials this weekend

Dallas native Skye Blakely has a good chance of making the Olympic team.

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

With the 2024 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony just a month away, it's finally time to pick the high-profile gymnastics teams who'll represent the United States in Paris. Many powerhouse Texans - including several with Dallas ties - are among the contenders.

The path to Paris ran through Fort Worth recently at the Xfinity U.S. Gymnastics Championships, where the top finishers earned their invitations to U.S. Olympic Team Trials. This weekend (June 27-30), they'll go flip-to-flip and vault-to-vault in Minneapolis; who'll stick the landing and get a chance to compete for Olympic glory? Fans won't know until Sunday night when the full team is announced. (See schedule, below.)

The competition will be fierce. Sixteen women and 20 men will vie for just five spots each, plus two traveling and two non-traveling replacement athletes for each squad.

And realistically, the women are competing for four spots; barring any catastrophes, all-time great Simone Biles will lead the team. Also expected to make the cut: Shilese Jones, six-time World medalist.

One of the top contenders to help round out the team is Dallas native Skye Blakely. The 19-year-old, who lives in Frisco and trains at champion-producing WOGA Gymnastics, is a two-time World team champion. She was crowned the 2024 U.S. all-around silver medalist in Fort Worth, where her debut of a difficult "Cheng" vault put her prominently in the conversation for the Olympics. Three years after her bid to make the 2020 Olympic team ended with an injury, Blakely is peaking at the right time.

UPDATE 6-27-2024: Skye Blakely was injured during a practice at Olympic Trials on Wednesday, June 26. On Thursday morning, USA Gymnastics announced that she will have to withdraw from competition. "During Podium Training on Wednesday, Skye Blakely sustained a right Achilles injury and will be unable to compete in Olympic Trials. We are cheering for Skye in her recovery!" the organization posted on Facebook.

Skye Blakely, Kayla DiCello, Hezly Rivera Skye Blakely (silver) Kayla DiCello (gold) and Hezly Rivera (bronze) at the 2024 USA Gymnastics Winter Cup.Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Her WOGA training mate Hezly Rivera has an outside shot. The New Jersey native, who now calls Plano home, surprised the Fort Worth arena by finishing sixth in the Nationals all-around competition - right behind 2020 Olympic medalists Suni Lee (fourth) and Jordan Chiles (fifth) and one place ahead of Jade Carey (seventh). Given that Rivera is just 16 years old, she'll be a serious contender for the 2028 Olympics if she stays healthy.

Another WOGA gymnast in the conversation is Kaliya Lincoln. The California native, a current Frisco resident, is known for her powerful tumbling and high-flying flips on floor exercise. Lincoln pulled out of Nationals in Fort Worth due to injury, but if fully recovered at Trials, the 18-year-old could soar to a spot on the team, or as an alternate.

Also in the hunt is Plano/Frisco native Zoey Molomo. Now living in McKinney, she trains at Metroplex Gymnastics and finished just outside the top 10 in all-around in Fort Worth, landing at No. 11. The 15-year-old (she'll turn 16 on July 11) will do doubt be in the conversation for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Zoey Molomo during training at Olympic Team Trials in Minneapolis.Facebook/USA Gymnastics

On the men's side, Plano native (and current Houston-area resident) Asher Hong is gunning for a spot on the Olympic team. He'll be up against a deep field that includes national champion Brody Malone, along with Frederick Richard, Yul Moldauer, Shane Wiskus, Colt Walker, Khoi Young, and Donnell Whittenberg.

All the gymnasts vying for a spot on the Olympic team are:

Women

Simone Biles — Spring, Texas/World Champions Centre
Skye Blakely — Frisco, Texas/WOGA Gymnastics
Jade Carey — Phoenix, Ariz./Oregon State University
Dulcy Caylor — Spring, Texas/World Champions Centre
Jordan Chiles — Vancouver, Wash./World Champions Centre
Kayla DiCello — Boyds, Md./Hill’s Gymnastics
Shilese Jones — Auburn, Wash./Ascend Gymnastics Center
Suni Lee — St. Paul, Minn./Midwest Gymnastics Center
Kaliya Lincoln — Frisco, Texas/WOGA Gymnastics
Eveylynn Lowe — Blue Springs, Mo./Great American Gymnastics Express
Zoey Molomo — Frisco, Texas/Metroplex Gymnastics
Hezly Rivera — Oradell, N.J./WOGA Gymnastics
Joscelyn Roberson — Texarkana, Texas/World Champions Centre
Simone Rose — Sammamish, Wash./Pacific Reign Gymnastics
Tiana Sumanasekera — Pleasanton, Calif./World Champions Centre
Leanne Wong — Overland Park, Kan./University of Florida

Men

Fuzzy Benas — Richmond, Texas/University of Oklahoma
Jeremy Bischoff — Santa Clarita, Calif./Stanford University
Cameron Bock — Tustin, Calif./University of Michigan
Tate Costa — Narragansett, R.I./University of Illinois
Alex Diab — Hinsdale, Ill./EVO Gymnastics
Asher Hong — Tomball, Texas/Stanford University
Patrick Hoopes — Lehi, Utah/U.S. Air Force Academy
Paul Juda — Deerfield, Ill./University of Michigan
Josh Karnes — Erie, Pa./Penn State University
Brody Malone — Aragon, Ga. /EVO Gymnastics
Kiran Mandava — Cypress, Texas/Cypress Academy of Gymnastics
Yul Moldauer — Arvada, Colo./5280 Gymnastics
Stephen Nedoroscik — Worcester, Mass./EVO Gymnastics
Curran Phillips — Naperville, Ill./EVO Gymnastics
Frederick Richard — Stoughton, Mass./University of Michigan
Kai Uemura — Chicago, Ill./Lakeshore Academy
Colt Walker — Cedar Park, Texas/Stanford University
Donnell Whittenburg — Baltimore, Md./Salto Gymnastics
Shane Wiskus — Spring Park, Minn./EVO Gymnastics
Khoi Young — Bowie, Md./Stanford University

Local fans will get a chance to see Biles and other top athletes on the post-Olympics Gold Over America Tour coming to Fort Worth in October. Tickets are now on sale.

Competition schedule and how to watch
The 2024 Gymnastics Olympic Team Trials will run June 27-30 in Minneapolis, with men's events taking place Thursday and Saturday, and women's events on Friday and Sunday. Courtesy of USA Gymnastics, the full schedule will be:

Thursday, June 27 – 5:45-8 pm CT – Men’s Day 1 (USA Network, Peacock)
Friday, Jun 28 – 6:40-9 pm CT – Women’s Day 1 (NBC, Peacock)
Saturday, June 29 – 2:15-5 pm CT – Men’s Day 2, Men’s Olympic Team named (NBC, Peacock)
Sunday, June 30 – 7:10-10 pm CT – Women’s Day 2, Women’s Olympic Team named (NBC, Peacock)

For more information on broadcast and streaming schedule, visit the NBC site and check local listings and providers.

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The story contains material from Associated Press and USA Gymnastics. It was updated with the news of Skye Blakely's injury on June 27.

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Movie Review

Comedy all-stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd can't save Anaconda sequel

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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