Dawn Staley Extracts US Gymnast Jordan Chiles’ ‘Secret Sauce’ Ahead of Paris Olympics 2024 Gold Chase

As the Paris Olympics 2024 are a few months away, the global athletic wear brand, Nike, planned its WWD shoot where Dawn Staley and Jordan Chiles collaborated for the first time. Coming from different genres of the sports industry, Dawn Staley is a 3x Olympic gold medalist and currently, the head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks basketball team. Jordan Chiles is an Olympian, World and Pan Am’s Champion UCLA Nike athlete.

In a three-day meet organized by Nike, the two empowered athletes were seen collaborating for the WWD’s cover shoot. Dawn Staley, who was aghast to see Jordan Chiles’ exemplary accomplishments to date, was also overwhelmed to understand the mind behind the American gymnast’s future targets.

According to a report by WWD per the sources, the basketball coach, meeting Jordan Chiles the first time said, “She’s magnetic,” Dawn Staley said, “She takes inspiration from other disciplines and learns from their ‘secret sauce.’ I like to hear the story behind how she’s elevated herself to stay at the top of her game.” For Jordan Chiles, it was amazing to relive the moment of association with Nike, a brand with which her grandparents have also been associated. Jordan noted, “It’s a full circle moment.” However, amid this, her goal remains set.

How Jordan Chiles voiced her hunger to grab the gold medal this Paris Olympics 2024 in the ongoing event is probably what caught Staley’s attention. “At the end of the day, I’m always thinking about gold. I love gold, I wear gold jewelry all the time, so it’s in my brain 24/7. Everybody’s thinking about the gold. We’re hungry for it.” Despite this hunger, there has been a paradigm shift in her mentality.

The matured and composed side of Jordan prevails

Jordan Chiles’ entry to the 2020 Olympics was a low-key affair. She attained the feat after missing out on the team of the most recent worlds. So there pressure of that inexperience had to be there. “I really pushed myself to a limit where I was just drained at the end,” Chiles had previously told in an interview. But Jordan rose up to the occasion. She stood up to make up for Simone Biles’ withdrawal from the team event, bringing home a silver. Thereafter, last year’s triumph in the Pan American Games also became hers. This has changed Jordan significantly. How?

Referring to the 2024 Olympics, Jordan said, “I think that’s something that I don’t think I would ever do [again], really push myself to that extreme… I will able to take, ‘Okay, I did it in ’21, it should be an easier way for ’24.’” Clearly, she is more calm and composed this time with a dash of maturity. It remains to be seen if this satiates Chiles’ hunger for gold in the upcoming big games.

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