Growing up, Colombian American gymnast Luisa Blanco was surrounded by greatness since she moved as a young girl from Los Angeles to the Dallas suburbs.
When football (soccer) season ended – her family devoted fans of the Colombian national team – her mum channelled her boundless energy from living-room leaps to gymnastics.
Her talent was evident early on as coaches at World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA) quickly told Blanco’s mother they wanted to see where it could all go.
“The gym owner approached my mum and said, ‘I think your daughter has something, and I’d love to explore that with you,’” Blanco recalled in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com. “I started at WOGA because it was the closest gym to home.
“It was luck after that,” she continued. “Looking back after many years, it’s a place where Olympians are raised. While I was training at WOGA, I saw all these incredible girls like [junior U.S. champion] Katelyn Ohashi, [world and Olympic champion] Madison Kocian, [world champion] Alyssa Baumann.”
While Blanco is clear that talented trio inspired her, there was something missing: women who looked like her.
“Even though they weren’t Latinas, they were in my group, and I could take inspiration from them,” she says. “But being Latina in a space where there aren’t many Latinos is very difficult, especially in artistic gymnastics.”
But then, Laurie Hernandez changed the landscape for Blanco when she became the first Latina US gymnast since 2004’s Annia Hatch.
“I think in 2016 is when everything changed for me, seeing Laurie Hernandez do what she did,” said Blanco about the member of the 'Final Five' who won team gold at Rio 2016. “At that moment, the idea of representing Latinos became something I wanted to do in the future.”
- Gymnast Luisa Blanco on the precipice of Olympic dream
Blanco on her journey to Paris 2024: “It wasn’t easy”
Eight years later, she did exactly that after qualifying to represent Colombia at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 through her performance at the 2023 Pan Am Games in Santiago, Chile.
In Paris, Blanco qualified for the individual all-around final.
But getting there had its fair share of ups and downs, she says.
“It wasn’t easy because everyone noticed that I’m brown-skinned, I’m Latina, and they’d ask, ‘Can you speak Spanish? Speak it now,’ as if it were a trick I could pull out. It was little things like that, but they bothered me a bit, and you realise you’re different,” said Blanco. “When I was a kid, that hurt.”
It motivated her, too, though.
“I thought I wouldn’t get far because I was Latina, because that’s what society told me… I always had to work a little harder… I had something to prove to the world,” she said. “That’s what pushed me throughout my career.”
Blanco has often felt, she says, stuck between her two worlds: “My whole life has been in the United States, I’ve been very Colombian, and in Colombia, I’m also a little too American. I’m stuck in this grey area where I don’t know where I belong.”
Her Paris experience – and the journey to get there – changed that.
“Since I qualified for the Pan American Games, I believe my life has changed, and I’ve started to have more connection with Colombia,” said Blanco. “Everything has been positive, and I can’t ask for more and I have to thank Colombia for accepting me and giving me so much love.”
The 22-year-old points to the start of her collegiate career at the University of Alabama as a turning point in her approach to the sport and how she could connect her rich heritage.
“When you get to university, gymnastics is no longer an individual sport but a team sport. You’re competing for something bigger than yourself, and that’s where I felt my pride,” said Blanco, the 2021 NCAA balance beam champion. “I’ve always been proud to be Colombian, but finally, I have the platform where I can express that to the world.
“It started small, with the music I choose for my floor routines, to where we are now, doing interviews in Spanish, I’m posting on my social media with subtitles, trying to – I don’t know – unite my two worlds.”
That experience has been rewarding for Blanco, to say the least.
“It’s been something so incredible that I don’t want to stop living it,” she says.
