Katelyn Ohashi’s Michael Jackson-inspired moves deserved more than a 10, according to the Internet Jury, who are losing their collective mind over her athleticism.
A video of the gymnast’s floor routine, which scored full marks at the Collegiate Challenge in Anaheim on Saturday January 12, has gone viral because no one on the World Wide Web can understand how Ohashi pulled off such a feat of creativity and fitness finesse.
You can watch the full routine, in all it’s mind-bending athletic glory, below:
A 🔟 isn't enough for this floor routine by @katelyn_ohashi. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/pqUzl7AlUA
— UCLA Gymnastics (@uclagymnastics) January 13, 2019
Even the professionals thought it was beyond perfect, with the UCLA Gymnastics Twitter account saying a top score of 10 ‘isn’t enough for this floor routine’.
Ohashi’s success helped her UCLA team bag the first-place team score of 197.700 against California, Michigan State and UC Davis – and made it to Twitter Moments because over 150,000 people are talking about her.
The Los Angeles Times report Ohashi as saying it was only the second time she’d performed the perfect routine in the prestigious competition between university teams.
The UCLA student became the NCAA 2018 floor champion with last year’s performance, to one of Michael Jackson’s many classics.
The gymnast’s 2018 performance also gained popularity with the people watching online, garnering over 90 million views.
Her coach, Valorie Kondos Field, told news outlets neither of them had any idea how to top 2018 this January. But they did.
Ohashi, who has been a gymnast for 18 years and has won plenty of competitions with her skills, worked really hard to try and pack as much punch as possible into her 2019 floor routine.
Coach Kondos Field said:
It’s ridiculous how much she does in that routine that she doesn’t have to do.
Most touching about the video, besides Ohashi’s incredible work, is the reaction of her teammates who’re all watching and egging her on. Many of them know the routine off by heart and some are performing it along with her.
uclagymnastics/TwitterAnd Ohashi’s enjoyment is palpable.
Clearly, it’s impressed the otherwise nonchalant Twitterati too, who have flooded the original post with messages of amazement and awe, congratulations and admiration.
One dubbed it Ohashi’s routine a ‘great mix of happy, epic and badass’, and other chimed in to say they’d forced their colleagues to gather round screens at work to watch it play out – much to everyone’s glee.
Many commented on the drop splits – which would’ve made even RuPaul’s jaw drop – and dubbed them ‘magic’.
One questioned whether Ohashi has ‘springs implanted in her feet’ or is maybe even ‘half cat’ thanks to her feline-like agility and strength.
One woman was so inspired she even tried to replicate the routine in a self-confessed recruitment plea to UCLA…
Needless to say, it didn’t end well.
Funny, all the same:
UCLA if you are recruiting, here’s me doing the same routine!! Willing to lie about age to compete dm me pic.twitter.com/4Q96S7CA0E
— Alyssa Limperis (@alyssalimp) January 14, 2019
The Art Decider themselves dubbed this routine Art, with a capital A.
Michael Jackson, the man, the myth, the legend, the icon who bought us Thriller and Billie Jean and hours of impressive dance moves, would be so proud.
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A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.