Jade Carey: 5 Things To Know About Gymnast Replacing Simone Biles In Olympic Finals

After Simone Biles withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics, Jade Carey will compete for Team USA in her place during the all-around finals.

After Simone Biles, 24, pulled out of the team finals on Tuesday July 27, the gold-medalist announced that she planned to continue working on her mental health and would not compete in the all-around finals on Thursday July 29. Instead Jade Carey, 21, will step up and compete in the all-around finals instead of Simone. Jade will be competing alongside Sunisa Lee, 18. Here are five things you need to know about Jade before watching her compete in the Olympics!

1. Jade Is A Vault And Floor Specialist

The Phoenix, Arizona native’s two main events in gymnastics are in the vault and floor competitions. Jade was not part of the original U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team, rather she qualified for the event as an individual. When it comes to the all-around individual competition at the Olympics, only two gymnasts per country are able to qualify for the finals. Because Simone will not compete in the finals, it allowed Jade to take her place, according to Sporting News. Jade will also compete in the floor exercise and vaulting finals on Sunday, via Yahoo Sports.

2. Jade Has Won First Place In a Number Of Competitions.

Jade began competing in national gymnastics competitions in 2016, when she went to the Women’s Junior Olympic National Championships. She came in first in the vaulting competition, according to her USA Gymnastics page. Throughout her career, Jade has come in first or placed in a number of different competitions. As an individual, she’s won first prize in 9 national competitions for individuals, 8 international individual competitions, and has been a part of 3 teams that have won first prize at international competitions.

3. Gymnastics Run In Her Family

Born in 2000, Jade has been doing gymnastics since she was a toddler, starting classes in 2002, according to her profile on USA Gymnastics. While two-years-old may sound incredibly young to begin in the sport, it makes much more sense once you learn that her parents were gym owners, and her dad, Brian Carey, is her head coach. “My parents owned a gym when I was born so I was always in the gym playing,” she said about how she got started. Even though she may have started playing around, there is so much that she loves about the sport now. In her profile, she said that her favorite parts about gymnastics are “Being able to travel around the world and meet many amazing gymnasts.”

4. After The Olympics, Jade Will Compete For Oregon State University

Jade signed a letter of intent to attend Oregon State University, back in 2017, but she opted to defer enrollment to train for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, according to her page on the OSU Beavers athletics website. She originally planned for her first season at the college to be 2020-21, as she told Inside Gymnastics, but she deferred playing, after the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the Tokyo Olympics back to 2021. In 2020, she did begin taking classes at OSU.

5. Besides Gymnastics, Jade Also Enjoys Archery

While she’s a world-class gymnast, Jade also enjoys archery in her free-time. In both her USA Gymnastics and OSU Beavers pages, she lists the bow-and-arrow sport as one of her favorite pastimes. Besides competing, travel seems to be one of her favorite parts of being able to compete in gymnastics. Jade told Inside Gymnastics in 2019 that her favorite place that she competed was Baku, Azerbaijan and her favorite vacation that she ever took was to Iceland.