PARIS -- Jade Carey has been thinking about this day for three years. Three years and two days, to be exact. And if the Paris Olympics is about redemption for the four returning members of the U.S. women's gymnastics team, for Carey, personal redemption means bringing home the medal she feels she dropped on the vault runway in Tokyo.
"For me, that word has the most meaning on vault," Carey told ESPN last month, shortly before the team departed for Paris. "Last time, not doing my best in the vault final when I was definitely expected to medal was hard. Just making the vault final again and proving that I'm as good as I was last time and belong there will be redemption. And hopefully walking away with a medal this time."
For Carey and most athletes in the delayed 2020 Games, competing without the support of friends and family and with the constant fear of testing positive for COVID-19 was hard. And because of another quirk of the Tokyo Olympics, Carey qualified and competed as an individual. She represented the U.S. but was not part of the four-woman team that earned silver medals in the team final. She wore a U.S. leotard but was not allowed to wear the same one as the women on Team USA. That made a lonely, difficult experience even tougher.
"I'm really excited to be part of the team this time," Carey said. "Making it back to the Olympics almost means more than it did the first time because I've had to go through so much and learn so much about myself to get here. I'm just glad that I never gave up and continued to trust the process and believe it would pay off in the end."
In Tokyo, Carey competed during qualifying as an individual and finished ninth in the all-around behind Biles (first) and Lee (third). When Biles pulled out of the final, Carey took her place and earned the second-highest scores on vault and floor, but fell off beam and finished eighth.
In the vault final, she was a medal favorite with an outside chance at gold but tripped on the runway during her Cheng and finished last. The next day, she won gold on floor, only the third American ever to do so, but she couldn't shake the sting of what had happened the day before.
Three years later, it still stings. But she has used the disappointment as fuel. She won a world championship title in the event in 2022 and has been a standout at Oregon State University, all while dreaming of earning a second shot at an Olympic vault final. That she will compete alongside Biles in the vault and floor finals here in Paris means even more.
"Simone was right there next to me after vault [in Tokyo] saying that it's okay, and that we can't be perfect all the time and things happen," Carey said. "And I was right there in her corner when things didn't go her way, and she was dealing with everything she was. We were able to really bond and be there for each other. I think it's when you go through the hard times together, that's what makes you closer."
That support has continued on a two-way street throughout the past year, as Biles returned to elite competition and Carey began transitioning from NCAA to elite in the runup to these Games. Only they know what it was like to compete in Tokyo while carrying a country's expectations on their shoulders and feel they didn't live up to them. Only they were there, and together, they wanted to return.
"We've been talking about it the past three years," Carey said. "Not a single one of us had the whole experience we wanted. There's something each of us wanted to be better at."
During U.S. championships and Olympic trials in Minneapolis last month, Carey said that when Biles saw that Carey was struggling with confidence issues or the fear of lining up on vault, she walked to her and gave her small cues to get her out of her head and into her body and help her turn her focus to her execution instead of what-ifs.
"[Simone]'s done a fantastic job of just reminding all of us that our normal is enough," Carey said in Minneapolis. "She was in every corner for my floor routine last night cheering for me, reminding me of little things on vault that helped me. It's just really great to have someone like her supporting all of us and helping us get through this. All four of us know what each person has gone through to get back to the Olympics and so we're really driven by that redemption. We all just want to have a different experience this time around."