Adaptive gymnastics to be included at 2026 Simone Biles International Invitational — Jade Carey shows off Olympic leotards

World Champions Centre, the gym owned by Simone Biles’s parents, announced this week that the HUGS program for athletes with special needs will be incorporated into the 2026 Simone Biles International Invitational meet. The meet will be held January 23-25, 2026, in Houston. 

HUGS is an adaptive gymnastics program that allows athletes with special needs the opportunity to compete in official USAG meets, alongside their non-disabled peers. All ages are welcome. The acronym stands for Hope Uniting Gymnastics With Special Athletes. It is part of USA Gymnastics’s Gymnastics for All discipline. 

This program teaches gymnastics fundamentals to athletes with special needs in the same way they are taught to non-disabled athletes. The process make take longer and and focus more deeply on fundamentals but it is the same process. The athletes’ goals differ, just as those of their non-disabled peers differ; some want a space to move their bodies, while others aspire to the Special Olympics. 

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At meets, the skills are judged according to E and D scores, per USAG rules, and athletes must meet certain routine criteria. Technique and form are as important in adaptive gymnastics as in non-adaptive gymnastics. Athletes compete in divisions determined by age, gender, and competitive ability. 

HUGS differs from para gymnastics. The latter is primarily for athletes with physical disabilities, though there are some sports with some categories for intellectual disabilities. Para gymnastics also allows for the possibility of elite-level competition, culminating in the Paralympic Games, held after the Olympics every four years. While para gymnastics has not, to date, been included in the Paralympics, there is a push for it to become an official Paralympic sport in time for the 2032 Games in Brisbane, Australia. 

The Special Olympics, primarily for athletes with intellectual disabilities, do not support elite-level competition and are entirely separate from the Paralympic Games. But they provide opportunities for athletes who might otherwise be overlooked by traditional sports programming, or assumed not to have the drive for competition of their non-disabled counterparts. And when we’re talking about adaptive sports, it’s always better to assume inclusion will have more benefits than not. 

By installing HUGS at a meet like the Simone Biles International Invitational, WCC provides another prestigious level of competition to these athletes. It’s an important step in the development of our sport, and a big step for inclusion. 

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Other gym news

College Gym News has started a new series about NCAA gymnastics geography. 

The Gymternet has the results of the Tashkent Challenge Cup. 

GymCastic this week featured a commissioned episode about the rise of the Brazilian gymnastics program. 

Both Simone Biles and Suni Lee are nominated for ESPY Awards. You can vote here. 

So this is cool. Utah’s student manager, Payton Fullmer, committed to BYU. It isn’t unusual to see gymnasts who retire for one reason or another while in school continue on their teams as managers, but the move in the opposite direction is less common. Fullmer is a former Level 10 gymnast who continued competing at that level while working at Utah, and was able to secure a team spot with the Cougars. 

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Five at The IX: Jade Carey and her Olympic leotards

Jade Carey made a TikTok running through all of her Olympic leos from Tokyo and Paris. I love when gymnasts do these types of videos, and thought this one well worth sharing because it shows off a lot of Carey’s personality.