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Jordan Chiles and ABC announced this week that she will be part of the new cast of Dancing With the Stars.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DOJDOdWjUnP/?img_index=1
Chiles is the latest in a long line of athletes in the gymnastics-to-DWTS pipeline. In my humble opinion, she is also one with the chops to make the finals and snag that mirrorball.
Shawn Johnson was the first big gymnastics name on DWTS, way back in 2009 — mere months after she won team and all-around silver and beam gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Johnson turned her professed disappointment at being Olympic runner-up into reality TV gold, winning season 8. She later finished second in the show’s All-Stars season in 2012.
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More big gym names followed in Johnson’s footsteps, hoping for similar results but coming up short. Aly Raisman and Nastia Liukin finished in fourth place in seasons 16 and 20, respectively.
Then Laurie Hernandez competed following the Rio Olympics in 2016 and won the whole shebang, surprising nobody and likely launching both her broadcast and theater-student careers.
Simone Biles, Suni Lee, and Mary Lou Retton have all competed on the show, placing fourth, fifth, and ninth, respectively. Men’s pommel horse star Stephen Nedoroscik competed in the most recent season, also claiming fourth place.
Now it is Chiles’ turn in high heels.
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Any athlete competing on the show has the discipline to succeed. Gymnasts come with the flexibility, coachability, and willingness to put in the work as well. What is not predictable is the athlete’s personality when out of their element, and their ability to make a new skill look effortless. Both Johnson and Hernandez were able to utilize the bubbliness, for lack of a better word, that shone through their gymnastics into ballroom dance and to captivate a new set of fans without losing the audience that followed them.
Chiles has long had the reputation as a hype woman for her teammates, and she is explosive both in the sport and in interviews. I think she has what it takes to continue creating new audiences for the storytelling she does through her movements. She also has the benefit of many followers of the show recognizing her name, which has stayed in the news for well over a year after the Paris floor final debacle. I’m excited to watch her on TV.
Other gym news
College Gym News has a fun roundtable about gymnastics superstitions and myths, and they also bring us the results of the Best Leotard of 2025, as decided by readers.
The Gymternet has the results of the British World Trials.
No Ruby Stacey in those results, unfortunately, as Stacey got into a bad car accident on her way there. She’s OK, she said, but unable to vie for a spot at worlds. She posted an Instagram story about the wreck that got picked up by International Gymnast:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DN-948ljb_N
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In brighter Team Great Britain news, Alice Kinsella had her baby! Welcome to the world, Jack Parker Lavin.
https://www.instagram.com/alicekinsella17/p/DOLB_qCjMFY
Emma Malabuyo will be the graduate student assistant coach at UCLA this year.
https://www.instagram.com/uclagymnastics/p/DOG0vn6CX2D
Simone Biles took on a TikTok challenge with aplomb.
Southern Utah will join the Pac-12 in 2027.
Five at The IX: Janelle McDonald
Janelle McDonald, head gymnastics coach at UCLA, answered media questions this week about Chiles’ selection for Dancing With the Stars. Chiles, of course, will be a UCLA senior for the 2026 season. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ELLA DUNDERDALE: What was your first reaction when you found out Jordan would be on Dancing With the Stars? Did you get to find out early? How did that go?
JANELLE MCDONALD: Yeah, her mom had reached out to me, probably about a month ago, just because there’s obviously a lot of logistics with her being a student athlete to manage, so, they wanted to kind of let me in on the surprise … so we could plan from our end what it would look like and how we can support her in being able to take on this amazing opportunity and still be able to balance being a student athlete.
I was really excited for her. I know this is something that she really was wanting to do. She’s always been a huge fan of the show, and she obviously loves to dance and perform. … I think it’s the perfect fit for her, and I’m just so excited for her to be able to have this opportunity, and to showcase gymnastics, as well, on a different stage, I think, is always a benefit to our sport.
BENJAMIN ROYER: How exciting is it to see [Chiles] have all these different ventures as a part of her career?
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JM: She really is not your typical student athlete as far as the amount of things that she has on her plate, and a lot of them are just amazing opportunities. We’re excited to support her in being able to take them on. Her schedule inspires me, each and every day, because the amount of things that she has on her plate that she handles with just so much grace, but also just the energy that she brings into each space that she enters is just inspiring. Obviously, making it work is going to be a balance of a lot of different things, but if anyone can do it, it’s definitely Jordan.
EVA GELTHEIM: The Dancing With the Stars schedule, from what I’ve heard, is pretty intense, so what is that balance going to look like between practicing the two?
JM: I’ve been actually really grateful that Dancing With the Stars is really accommodating. They know that she is a very busy student-athlete. [They know that] she really wants to be a part of the team’s preseason, because she hasn’t gotten to actually do a full preseason in her years in NCAA gymnastics. She’s always been training for world championships, or she was on the post-Olympic tours and things.
Luckily, they practice and film here in LA. So she’s going to be practicing [dance] outside of our practice times, [and] she’ll still do our traditional practices, our normal practice times. She’ll still have her school and classes. She’s going to be incredibly busy, and I’m sure we’re going to have to kind of play some things by ear, but for the most part, she’s gonna be with the team every day except Tuesday, which is the day that the show films [live]. She’s going to get the best of both worlds.
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PATRICIA DUFFY: Do you or the team plan on making any cameos?
JM: Well, I hope so. We actually went to the 500th episode of Dancing With the Stars last year as a team. It was one of the highlights for us as one of our team activities, and so now having Jordan on it, I know we’re really excited to try to get to go and get to support her, so we’re definitely going to be working on that. No finalized plans yet, but it’s definitely in the works.
EG: Dance and performance are huge things UCLA is known for. What does it mean to bring one of the program’s top gymnasts onto a stage where they’re showing what they also excel at as a UCLA gymnast?
JM: Yeah, you know, dance parties are a big part of the joy that we have in the gym, and it’s just part of the culture that we carry here. I think that to see one of our athletes get the opportunity to be [seen] as a true dancer on this stage is going to be something that’s really special, and I’m sure she’s going to bring in some new styles and some new moves for the team to learn, so we’re all looking forward to that as well.
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