Jaelyn Olsen is the best gymnast
in the collegiate Mid American Conference at vault and balance
beam
Jaelyn
Olsen is the best gymnast in the collegiate Mid American Conference
at vault and balance beam. This comes as no surprise to many Osage
children who gathered round to watch her perform backflips and
aerials, sometimes soaring over six feet high, at the Grayhorse
camp at the Pawhuska In-Lon-Schka this year.
Olsen, who is from Bethany, Okla., will be a junior at Northern
Illinois University this fall and has enjoyed a full scholarship
for gymnastics.
"Jaelyn is a great athlete and has a great work ethic, and I
am impressed at how clean and precise her gymnastics looks," said
NIU Head Coach Sam Morreale. "I am very excited to see what else
she is capable of this upcoming year, I am proud she is a Huskie."
In March of this year, MAC Coaches chose Olsen as the MAC Specialist
of the Year, an award given to a gymnast who competes in only one
or two events. Olsen excelled on the vault and balance beam and
is the third Huskie to win this award since it was instituted in
2006, according to niuhuskies.com.
Her competition season lasts approximately 11 weeks, with one
meet each week. NIU is part of the Mid American Conference (MAC)
and most of the meets are against other teams within MAC. Anyone
wanting to keep up with Olsen's college career can always find numerous
postings on Facebook and Twitter about her many accomplishments.
Olsen started gymnastics at the age of five and trained at Mat
Trotters Gymnastics in Oklahoma City with coaches Jeff and Trish
Carter.
Olsen practices four hours a day, five days a week. As a child
Olsen has said she really had no free time because she came home
from school and went straight to practice then home to eat
and bed, and get up to do it all over again.
She has stated it was hard sometimes when friends wanted to
hang out and she couldn't but she understood how important practice
was and that it came first. There were a few bumps along the way
with injuries but her coaches believed in her and with hard work
it has all paid off.
"Jaelyn had an ankle injury which limited her to vaults and
beams, and had a knee injury her freshman year, however she still
competed," Morreale said.
"Practices were hard some days but I wouldn't be where I am
at today without them. They helped me achieve my goal of being a
collegiate gymnast," Olsen said.
Olsen
has achieved an all-time career best score of 9.700 on the balance
beam and is currently tied for fourth place in all-time vault scores
for the collegiate 2014 season. She has had six first place finishes
in the vault and two first place finishes in the balance beam for
NIU.
In Olsen's free time she enjoys spending time with family and
friends, shopping and going to the movies.
One of her favorite quotes is by Arnold Schwarzenegger who said:
"The mind is limited. As long as the mind can envision the fact
that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you believe
100 percent."
"I really like this quote because gymnastics isn't just a physical
sport, it is also a mental sport. I have learned that this is true
because I always visualize myself doing a routine or a skill perfect,"
Olsen said. "Visualizing really helps me because when you think
you can't do it, you really can. Just like this quote, you can really
do it if you just believe."
Olsen's favorite competition is the MAC Conference Championship.
It is a meet where all the teams from MAC compete and show off their
hard work as they try to claim the conference title.
Upon graduating from NIU, Olsen would like to come back to Oklahoma
and coach and teach Physical Education.
Olsen is the daughter of Biff and Mary Olsen from the Grayhorse
District and comes from the Mary Osage Green family.
|