Bergen County teen gymnast training for opportunity to represent Barbados at 2024 Olympics

Every four years, some of the best athletes in the world gather together for the Summer Olympics, and one of North Jersey's own is trying to join the exclusive club.

Meet Olivia Kelly, a 16-year-old from Mahwah who could represent Barbados at the 2024 Paris Games. Her paternal grandfather is from Barbados, and she and her father, Tori, have dual citizenship.

“I love this country and I would love to compete for them and help them out because they have a gymnastics program, but they don’t have a lot of money and funding for the program,” Kelly said.

Kelly, who moved from the Bronx to Mahwah in 2019, began her gymnastics career at the 2 years old, when she would take tumbling and mommy-and-me classes. She was involved in all types of sports growing up, including cheerleading, swimming and taekwondo, but found her passion for gymnastics at age 7 and decided to solely focus on the sport.

Kelly’s gymnastics career took off in 2017 when she enrolled in North Stars Gymnastics Academy in Boonton, where Ashley Umberger, a former member of the United States senior international gymnastics team, is the owner and coach.

“When she walked in the gym she had the ability, she had a mindset,” Umberger said of Kelly. “My job in that first year was helping her find her love again, and luckily we did that."

Umberger’s coaching philosophy is based around proper preparation and making sure the gymnast does not sustain injuries from overworking.

“She’s such a great coach,” Kelly said of Umberger. “She really understands the coaching style that she needs to use when she’s with me.”

Kelly starts practice with Umberger at 8 a.m. every weekday with Umberger, going through a full rotation, including stretching and conditioning, vault, bars, beam and floor during a four-hour workout. Three days a week, Kelly also does a second practice from 2-4 p.m., in which she works on extra skills or finishes exercises from the morning.

In addition to the 30 hours per week she spends in the gym, she is homeschooled through the Florida Virtual School. She will often complete school work in between her two practices and at night.

Even with all that work, Kelly said she still doubts her skills sometimes and works through those mental challenges with a therapist.

“She just has this confidence about her,” Umberger said. “If you say, ‘hey, Olivia you got it?’ She’s like ‘yeah, I got it.’ And that’s something that’s really special for an athlete to possess.”

Away from the gym, Kelly tries to give back to the community. She's currently gathering supplies for students who do not have back-to-school items.

“She’s always doing things over and above what a normal teenager would be doing, especially one that dedicates the amount of time in the gym she dedicates,” Umberger said. “She just understands some adult things as a kid."

Kelly recently returned from Rio de Janeiro, where she competed in the Pan American Games and qualified as an alternate for the World Championships to be held in October in Liverpool, England. She'll compete in another set of Pan American Games and could qualify for the World Championships in 2023. In between these events, she will continue to compete in the U.S. women’s development program as a Level 10 gymnast.

The next goal on the horizon is qualifying for the 2024 Olympics.

“She wants to go there and be competitive and she’s heading in that way,” Umberger said. “She won’t just show up to compete, she will be trying to get a medal.”

For Kelly, reaching the Olympics would cap off her dream.

“It would mean everything,” Kelly said. “I mean, it’s been my dream since I was really little and it’d be like fulfilling that little girl’s dream, which would be super cool.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Mahwah NJ gymnast hopes to represent Barbados at 2024 Olympics