Provided by Anna Lee

Anna Lee (12) poses with gold and bronze medals at the 2021 USA Gymnastics Championships. Anna trained in rhythmic gymnastics from nine to seventeen years old.

An empty 12-by-12 meter floor and a panel of expectant judges await Anna Lee (12). Dressed in a glittering leotard with a face full of stage makeup and slicked-back hair, Anna enters the floor with delicate, precise steps as her name is announced. She carefully raises the six-meter-long satin ribbon gripped in her hand and strikes her beginning pose. The music begins.

Throughout her seven and a half years of rhythmic gymnastics training, Anna has become familiar with the intense competition experience. Within the ten levels of rhythmic gymnastics, which categorize gymnasts based on their skill, she is currently at level nine, one of the most elite competitive stages. At the height of her competitive career, she trained for twenty hours a week at Diana’s Rhythmic Club, constantly practicing with the five apparatuses used in rhythmic gymnastics: hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon and rope. In 2021, she won third place with her team in the national USA Gymnastics Competition. 

“With rhythmic gymnastics, it requires so much sweat and tears,” Anna said. “What you go through and all that stuff that you have to experience is just a step towards success. It’s a lot of learning how to accommodate and understand your range of abilities, while still pushing yourself at the same time.”

At competitions, Anna performs four routines, each lasting one and a half minutes. The routines involve completing leaps, balances and rotations while performing intricate tricks with the routine’s specific apparatus. With the constant risk of injury and the intense physical and psychological demand, rhythmic gymnastics is not a sport that many can handle. 

“You have to throw [the apparatus], and sometimes it would land on your head, or you might hurt yourself, or you might fall down while doing it,” Anna said. “You have to find the courage to be able to actually throw the apparatus and interact with it. Most people would be scared of falling or getting bruised or cut, but you have to ignore that fear and still go with it.”

When Anna began rhythmic gymnastics at nine years old, she was initially drawn in by the colorful leotards and intricate designs on the apparatuses. However, Anna immediately realized that her idealistic view of the sport was very different from reality. 

“When I first started, on the first day I was so scared to the point where I just cried the whole entire class,” Anna said. “When we were warming up, we had to use a jump rope to go across the floor. I was so scared that others would judge me and I started crying because I didn’t know how to jump rope.”

Fear of others’ judgment has always presented a great challenge to Anna. At the elite level, Anna often finds herself competing against young, extremely talented gymnasts who devote their entire lives to the sport. Although Anna sometimes worries about what her competitors think of her, she has grown to realize the importance of her own confidence in her abilities over others’ perception. 

“There’s always going to be other people who are better than you, some maybe even younger,” Anna said. “Sometimes you feel like, ‘Oh, maybe they think that I’m bad.’ You have to realize that what you’re doing is what you love, and you shouldn’t care about what other people think because they might not think the same way as you.”

Close friend and fellow rhythmic gymnast Bella Chen (11), who has trained with Anna since the age of eight, remarks on how Anna’s tenacity has helped her excel in the sport. 

“I think her strengths are that she’s able to withstand a lot of stress during competition season,” Bella said. “She’s a really fast learner, so if we need to make any changes to the routine, she’s always able to adapt quickly.”

Anna’s growth in confidence is evident in her performance quality during competitions. When performing in front of judges, Anna’s conviction in herself plays a large role in overcoming the high-pressure environment.

“She’s definitely gotten a lot more confident as she competed more,” Bella said. “In the beginning, I remember she was scared to show any expressions when she was competing. But, over the years, she’s gotten a lot more comfortable on the competition floor, and she’s really grown as a performer.” 

Anna completed her long journey in rhythmic gymnastics in the summer before her senior year, when she decided to quit the sport due to its heightened time commitment and to have more time to focus on her college applications. However, throughout the years, she has grown both as an athlete and a person, acquiring the ability to persevere in the face of adversity.

“When you have an especially horrible day where you drop every single one of your tosses in the routine, or you fall out of every turn, it’s very frustrating because you know that you can do better,” Anna said. “One of the hardest parts is just picking yourself up and trying to keep going. The past is the past, and you can’t change it.”