Coached by former UNC assistant, Luisa Blanco makes her Olympic gymnastics debut in Paris

Every athlete dreams of having the opportunity to represent their country on the world’s biggest stage. Colombia gymnast Luisa Blanco has been imagining it for years.

“I was talking about this the other night - it’s the lady that goes, ‘from Colombia, Luisa Blanco.’ I was like, ‘let’s go dude.’ You envision it in your mind and listen to it and maybe one day it will happen but when it truly does, I understand why people say they can’t put it into words because how do you take the last 16 years of your life and put it into a couple sentences.”

The first time Olympian represented Team Colombia in qualifications at Bercy Arena on Saturday, pleasing her coaches, including former North Carolina and current Alabama gymnastics assistant coach Amelia Hundley.

“I think the coolest thing for us and for her is we want it to just be a celebration of her career,” Hundley said. “She’s put so much work into this - she’s doing this for her, for her country. I think that’s what I’m most proud of her.”

Blanco, the 2021 NCAA balance beam champion from the University of Alabama, came into this year’s Olympic Games off of an illustrious collegiate career. An All-American, 2021 SEC Gymnast of the Year, and 2023 and 2024 AAI award finalist are just a few of her accolades.

She captured the all-around and bars title at the 2023 Colombian Championships before going on to represent Team Colombia in the 2023 Pan American Games, finishing eighth in the all-around, securing her spot in Paris.

While she’s known for months that she‘d qualified, it didn’t set in until Saturday and might not fully set in for her for a while still.

“Well everybody’s been calling me an Olympian or saying, ‘when you do your autographs, why don’t you put the rings on it’ and I just couldn’t do it until the moment actually came,” Blanco said. “The energy was absolutely incredible - I feed off this kind of energy. It’s very similar to collegiate gymnastics and I felt comfortable out there. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I don’t think I fully processed it even now.”

Blanco posted a 13.466 on vault, a 12.833 on bars finishing off with a stuck dismount, a 12.766 on beam, and a 12.633 on floor to cap off her day on the competition floor. Her 51.698 all-around score currently puts her in 22nd place with two qualifications to go with the top 24 advancing to all-around finals. However a few of those gymnasts ahead of her won’t make it because each country is allowed only two gymnasts in all-around.

Even though she wasn’t competing with a full team, she has still had support from other gymnasts including Suni Lee, who helped her during training. She even had an interaction with Simone Biles.

“I felt incredible,” Blanco said, “because I said, ‘Simone knows about my existence.’ That’s gymnastics - it doesn’t matter if you’re the best in the world or if it’s your first games. It unites us all.”

She also had some of her coaches from Alabama who are in France supporting her including Ashley Johnston and Justin Spring, who is commentating on men’s gymnastics.

Hundley coached the Tar Heels from 2021-23 before she moved to Alabama to take her dream job at one of the top programs in the nation.

It created a full-circle moment for Hundley as she went from competing against Blanco as a Florida undergrad in Blanco’s freshman collegiate season at Alabama to coaching her in Blanco’s final one. While she wasn’t able to support Blanco in-person in Paris on Saturday, the Hundley said the Alabama coaching staff couldn’t be prouder of the gymnast who repped the Crimson Tide colors.

One recipe for success for Blanco in the later part of her career has been her mental game. She journaled before today’s competition and included phrases like “today is an opportunity to show the WORLD who I am and what God has done through me.”

“It was ingrained in my head that when I was 16 years old, I was going to peak at gymnastics and here I find myself at 22 and I now know that this sport is a mental game, more than anything,” Blanco said. “So whether it’s writing it down - I love to meditate. I love to pray before and listen to music.”

Regardless of whether Blanco qualifies for the all-around final, she’s already a role model for so many young Colombian gymnasts looking up to her and has given it her all.

Anna Laible is a student with UNC Media Hub, a program with the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, reporting from the Summer Olympics in Paris. She hosts the Speak Up Sports Podcast. Follow her journey covering her first Olympics on her Instagram (@anna_laible).