Aspiring to take the 2028 Summer Olympics stage, a young Lawrence gymnast has made the Junior Women’s National Team.
Aulya Daniels, 14, placed in the top eight at the Xfinity U.S. Championships last weekend and was thus named to the 2025 team.
“It was very very stressful, and it was loud, but it was a very fun experience,” Aulya said. “It doesn’t really faze me — it being that loud. It kind of just all automatically blocks out for me once I feel it.”
In the crowd, Aulya’s parents watched in anticipation. She performed the vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise at two days of competition. The all-around junior ranking was based on each athlete’s combined scores.
“It was very nerve-wracking for me,” Aulya’s mother, Tracey Daniels, said. “It was scary. I didn’t know what to expect, but she did really, really good. I was so proud of her. I’m amazed at how she pushes through and gets it done.”
Aulya said she first started gymnastics at a gym called Tumblebees in her home state of North Carolina, because her parents noticed she “never sat down or stopped flipping around.”
A former coach of Aulya’s, Brooke Santee, said she remembers that zeal. Aulya’s family moved from Greensboro to Lawrence in 2016, the same year Santee opened Top Tumble, and they enrolled at the gym. Aulya began throwing back handsprings at age 5, which Santee said is three or four years younger than average for that skill.
In 2019, she became the first in the program to pass Level 8 tumbling skills. As tradition, she got to select the next leotard color.
Santee still gets to see Aulya even though she no longer trains at Top Tumble, Santee said. She always attends the gym’s anniversary party, but during this year’s, she was busy in New Orleans, qualifying for the national team. The two exchanged texts about the news.
“I basically was telling her to enjoy these moments, because she is a special kid and she gets to have these super special experiences that not a lot of kids get to have as athletes and to really take the time to embrace it,” Santee said.
Returning home Monday after a 13-hour drive, Aulya was back making her hourlong commute to practice on Wednesday.
Aulya is homeschooled and spends six days a week training for hours at Great American Gymnastic Express in Blue Springs, Missouri.
As a national team member, Aulya will attend camps where she could qualify to represent the country at international competitions this year.
“For her being so young and determined and strong, and, she is just flying with this,” Daniels said. “If she wants to go to the Olympics, we’ll take her there, we’ll support her there. It’s a lot to this journey, but we’re just taking it in one day at a time, so it won’t be so overwhelming.”
See Aulya’s profile on the USA Gymnastics website, members.usagym.org, which includes video clips of past performances.
Follow her on Instagram, @aulya_daniels, where she documents her sport.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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