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

Faces of Death returns with modern twist on cult horror film

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy - in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks - is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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