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.

blakely gymnastics olympic trials lincoln simone biles sports

Movie Review

New film I Want Your Sex somehow makes kinky activity boring

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde in I Want Your Sex.

Writer/director Gregg Araki has been making provocative movies for nearly 40 years, releasing his debut - Three Bewildered People in the Night - in 1987. Most of them have had plotlines that revolved around sex in one way or another, and for his latest - his first film in 12 years - he’s putting it right there in the title, I Want Your Sex.

Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) is an aimless twenty-something who can’t even afford the rent for his apartment with best friend, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders). Thankfully, he finds a job at the gallery of artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), who is open with her sexuality both in her artwork and in her day-to-day life. That soon includes Elliot, whom she convinces to enter into a dominant-submissive relationship with her, with sessions taking place both at work and her home.

Elliot, who’s in a going-nowhere coupling with Minerva (Charli XCX), is more than willing to participate, both because it lets him feel something he doesn’t get normally and because Erika offers a perspective on sex that’s much different from people of his generation. But as he gets in deeper with her, he starts to lose a sense of himself, going down a path in which he finds himself talking to police detectives Zem (Johnny Knoxville) and Zola (Margaret Cho).

Araki does his level best to make I Want Your Sex into a broad comedy, and early on it seems as if he might succeed. The deadpan way that sexual objects appear in the film (a penis-shaped rug in Elliot and Apple’s apartment, a vagina artwork with chewed gum as the medium) make for amusing sight gags. He also makes Elliot the bewildered other in multiple twosomes, with Minerva being the funniest, as she’s way more interested in studying than his ham-fisted attempts at sex.

It’s clear that Araki wants the film to be a commentary on the generational differences about sex, but he fumbles his own idea. It starts with an on-the-nose conversation between Erika and Elliot, and continues with the various dalliances, which seem to be more about making Elliot look and feel ridiculous than giving true insight. Their encounters certainly open his mind about what sex can be, but their one-note nature makes them repetitive and frankly boring, odd considering the acts in which the two engage.

The uninspired storytelling makes the 90-minute film drag way more than it should. Araki includes a few other characters to try to vary the tone of the film, including gallery workers Zap (Mason Gooding) and Vikktor (Daveed Diggs), but their early promise yields little results. The framing device of Elliot’s interview with the detectives never works, especially because Araki completely neuters the personalities of Cho and Knoxville for seemingly no good reason.

The cast as a whole goes to waste. Hoffman is showing the promise of his late father (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and even though he’s appealing here, the material pulls him down. Wilde just made her own provocative movie about sex (The Invite), and this one pales in comparison despite her heightened performance. Wonders, Charli XCX, and Gooding are all young stars who deserve to be showcased much better than they are in this film.

A film called I Want Your Sex is announcing itself as daring and alluring, but this film contains almost none of those qualities. Instead, it’s a slog that only occasionally has something interesting to show or say, mostly relying on the power of its actors to hold viewers’ attention - and failing at even that.

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I Want Your Sex is now playing in select theaters.