​Katelyn Ohashi (left) with Val Kondos Field, her former coach at UCLA.Photograph: Shayne Smith/UCLA AthleticsEvery morning, Katelyn Ohashi gets up and makes a smoothie and then walks her four-month-old puppy. She drives to the gym and begins with a moment of gratitude before warming up with gymnasts half her age. She trains four days a week, around four hours per day, while also dabbling in her various hobbies. It’s a routine that maybe a decade ago she didn’t envision but is now undertaking.When Ohashi left elite gymnastics in 2013, it was no longer a place where she found joy. Although she was seen as an Olympic hopeful (she was the last gymnast to beat Simone Biles in the all-around finals at the American Cup), a back injury took her out of the running for the Games. She slowly found her joy for the sport in NCAA gymnastics at UCLA, where she was known for her perfect 10 floor routines that often went viral, garnering millions of views from around the world.Now 29, she is chasing a lifelong dream: a spot on the US team for a home Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.Ohashi first had inklings of a return to elite gymnastics back in 2021. She, along with former Tokyo gymnasts and others, participated in Simone Biles’s Gold Over America tour across the country. With a three-year runway, Ohashi said she started to get into shape but “never really took it seriously”. Paris 2024 came and went. Last year, the conversation shifted.“This time around, it just felt like: OK, LA, home soil. For gymnastics, I’m definitely getting up there in age,” Ohashi said. The average age on the women’s national team in Paris was about 22 – the oldest since 1952 – with Biles the oldest member at 27. “It just felt like if I really wanted this to be something real, I needed to move out of LA.”A Seattle native, Ohashi moved repeatedly during her childhood in pursuit of gymnastics, relocating with her mother and one of her brothers from Missouri to Texas before heading to California for college. Finding the right training gym this time was a stroke of luck thanks to her connections at UCLA. Cale Robinson, a friend and former Stanford men’s gymnast, owned Pacific Reign Gymnastics in Woodinville, Washington, where Ohashi would play around some skills when visiting family. Catching up at dinners together over the years, Robinson and Ohashi would joke about how easy her flips still felt. At one point, the conversation about coming back to elite got more serious.“We, like, loosely mapped things out,” Robinson recalled. Ohashi started working with a personal trainer and lifted weights daily to get stronger and build her muscle strength back.“Get a team of people around you, like your physical therapist, all of the people that you need to make sure that you’re healthy first and foremost,” Robinson said.Related: Katelyn Ohashi’s perfect 10 reminded America life could be fun againOhashi gathered her team, including talking to Valorie Kondos Field,