“You Can’t Expect Us”: Shilese Jones Pleads to the Gymnastics Community Ahead of 2024 Xfinity Championship

As the Paris Olympics draw nearer, things are heating up everywhere and the realm of gymnastics is no exception. With that, the expectations of the fans have also skyrocketed to the point that they are finding faults in their favorite athletes’ performances. For example, when Gabby Douglas pulled out of the Core Hydration Classics, fans frowned a lot. Competing at the Winter Cup, the 2020 Olympics’ all-around champion, Suni Lee, failed to make a mark. In fact, her comeback was a forgettable one as Lee tripped twice during her performance. 

With such rising discontent amidst the fans, the calls for leveling up of the gymnasts are stronger than ever. However, speaking about the same, US gymnast Shilese Jones did not align with the fans’ sentiments. In fact, Jones pointed out a few things that would help the fans to understand the athletes’ point of view as well. 

Shilese Jones asks fans to have patience

The 2x World Champion Shilese Jones is currently training hard for the upcoming US Championships. Competing at the US Classics, Jones succumbed to the heroics of Simone Biles to settle in second place. While Biles amassed an impressive 59.5 points all around, Jones ended up with 1.85 points less than her. Such a performance once again caused the fans to question Jones’ commitment ahead of the Paris games. However, the gymnast seems to have an answer for the same. 

Jones requested the fans not to expect the gymnasts to go all out in every tournament. This might have a harmful effect on them in the long run. Speaking on the topic, Jones said, “you can’t expect us to do 100% at every meet and then go ahead and do 1000% at the trials… It’s building on something, you kind of can’t take away from the bigger picture just get ten steps ahead so we are 100% ready then  definitely a learning process/comes with its own ups and downs.”

Thus, going by Jones’ comments, it can be fathomed that she is training hard for the Olympics. And whatever happens in the preceding tournaments, her peak performance can only be witnessed in Paris. Well, Shilese Jones was not the only athlete to hold such a stance. 

More gymnasts join in support of Jones’ statements

In the same press conference, a couple of other young gymnasts were also present. One of them, the 2x World Champion Skye Blakely and Leanne Wong also echoed similar sentiments from Jones. Reflecting about their performances event by event, Blakely initially said, “You don’t wanna peak now, you wanna peak when it’s time, so each meet, each event is just building one step closer.” 

Wong also agreed and then went on to say, “As a gymnast, we are super hard on ourselves, we want to be perfect.” Thus, with response now coming in from the athletes, it remains to be seen if they can really pick the pace up as Paris draws closer.