My Story

From the age of 5, I had the goal to become an Olympian; however, it was not to be in the summer Olympics. Following the footsteps of my mom, my first sport was figure skating. I had become a great athlete fairly quick, but in 2007 due to the recession, my parents were unable to afford the many expenses that came with the sport. I then went into ballet in hopes to eventually be apart of a professional company. I loved ballet, but it never felt competitive enough for me. When I was a freshman in high school, I decided to tryout for the track and field team. My dad, who was a former professional track and field athlete began to see my potential for having a successful track career. He then took the role of becoming my coach and I pursued to train for the heptathlon.   

After a very successful high school career, I furthered my athletic and academic goals with a full ride to the University of Oregon. During my first year on the team, I had difficulty adapting to the cold, rainy weather, and the their different training strategy. Although, I had made my first USA team and became a U20 World Champion that year at Oregon, I began to suffer with depression, as I felt like my dream of becoming an Olympian was coming to an end.

I made a big decision to enter into the transfer portal in hopes of attending a school in California where I would be able to get more support from my family. All the paths aligned and I decided to follow in my dad’s footsteps and attend the University of California Los Angeles, where my dad was able to be brought on as a volunteer coach. Throughout the transfer process, I was dealing with a lingering injury that I had gotten while my time at Oregon. Once I got to UCLA, we found out I had a stress fracture in my spine, which led to me having to sit out the first year on my new team. 

Once I finally healed, I began to break school records and was a top athlete in the NCAA in 2020, until COVID cut the season short. In 2021, I started back where I left off and had an historic season, placing myself on UCLA’s all-time list. I also was able to fulfill my long term dream of becoming an Olympian by landing a spot on the team USA 2020 Olympic team. 

After a successful 2021 season, I thought 2022 was going to be nothing but special; however, I experienced nothing but adversity. Throughout the year, my dad dealt with a multitude of health issues, a love one pasted away, and I was sunken into a hole of anxiety and stress due to managing the heavy class load for my Economics major alongside of trying to become the best athlete in the nation and world. Most people would say that the track and field season I had was exceptional considering I was still among the top in the nation; however, I felt as though all my goals fell short.