North Cook News

Team USA rhythmic gymnastics star Camilla Feeley is hoping her run at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be as rewarding as her journey in the sport has been over the last nearly two decades.

“It captured her heart as soon as she saw it,” Pamela Feeley told The Daily Tar Heel of how her daughter first became enamored with the sport. “Her passion was really in the artistic expression.”

The 21-year-old Wheeling, Illinois, resident and University of North Carolina student is hoping all that love and dedication is easy for the judges to see when she and her teammates take the floor for the first time in Tokyo over the weekend of Aug. 5.

Even with marking the first time Team USA had a group qualify and at least two individuals qualify for the games, Feeley concedes in some ways the moment is bittersweet.  The second-year UNC student is ending her career after the games to focus on her academics.

Feeley admits she never really saw this moment coming.

“Honestly, it wasn’t really a decision I made like, ‘Now I’m going to do this professionally,’” said Feeley, adding that the same can essentially be said for being an Olympian. “It just kind of happened and I just went for it.”

From the very start, she said her run has been a team effort.  Her mom, Pam, first introduced her to the sport when she took her to open gyms in her home state of Maryland. At one of the gatherings, she saw 2012 Olympian Julie Zetlin training and a seed was planted.

“I saw her training and I was like ‘Oh my gosh mom, can I please do that?’” she said.

Between then and now, Feeley’s family made all the sacrifices to keep her on track, canceling family vacations to accommodate her practice schedule and relocating across the country several times to ensure that she always had the best opportunities and training.

When she was in eighth grade, the family made the move to Illinois, where the U.S. National Team for rhythmic gymnastics is located.

After spending most of her career as an individual gymnast, Feeley only recently made the switch to being a group performer. Though the artistry is what’s always meant the most to her, she admits that has made for some change.

She said being a member of a group is totally different based on the way teammates must think of one another in everything they do to ensure that the unity shines through. Feeley said the team regularly practiced twice a day for a total of six hours, including during the pandemic when their practices took place over Zoom.

The team earned its way to Tokyo roughly a month before The Games were set to commence with a qualifying performance at the Pan American Championships in Rio de Janeiro.

“It was amazing,” Feeley said about qualifying. “My whole team and I were in a hotel in Brazil at the time. We all found out that we were going to the Olympics and burst into tears because so many years of putting hard work into gymnastics and finally our dreams were coming true.”