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The careers of Olympians like Simone Biles mirror the rise of adult gymnastics. 'I'm never leaving.'

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The careers of Olympians like Simone Biles mirror the rise of adult gymnastics. 'I'm never leaving.'
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The careers of Olympians like Simone Biles mirror the rise of adult gymnastics. 'I'm never leaving.'

2024-08-01 00:10 Last Updated At:02:11

Every few years when the Olympics would roll around, the unmistakable pangs Jen Castellano knew were coming but was powerless to stop would hit.

Of chalk on her hands. The beam underneath her feet. The sounds and smell of a packed gym. The intoxicating mix of frustration, determination and joy while trying to master a new skill.

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Angela Fuller, 44, trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the high bar as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the high bar as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, rubs chalk on her hands as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, rubs chalk on her hands as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, rubs chalk on her hands as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, rubs chalk on her hands as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the high bar as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the high bar as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, puts on grips as she trains, Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, puts on grips as she trains, Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the uneven parallel bars as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the uneven parallel bars as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, poses as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, poses as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the rings as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the rings as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Only, as her 20s turned into her 30s, the director of investment operations at a firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, felt she had nowhere to go to turn those pangs into something tangible.

“I never thought I would do gymnastics again,” Castellano said.

Then, in the summer of 2021, she watched Simone Biles (23 at the time) and 33-year-old mother of two Chellsie Memmel compete at the U.S. championships. Castellano soon found herself on a website ordering a couple of leotards.

Not long after the Tokyo Olympics, inspired by what she'd watched, Castellano summoned the courage to visit Triumph Gymnastics in Cary, North Carolina, the rare gym that offered adult classes. She quickly discovered those familiar pangs were not unique to her.

The demographics surrounding the sport are shifting, and not just at the elite level, where Biles and the oldest women's team the U.S. has ever sent to the Olympics — the aptly nicknamed “ Golden Girls ” — returned to the top of the podium in the team final on Tuesday night.

On Thursday, Biles will try to become the oldest Olympic all-around champion in 72 years. Her stiffest competition figures to come from 25-year-old Brazilian Rebeca Andrade in an event that also includes Ellie Black of Canada and Filipa Martins of Portugal, both 28.

Their longevity is reflective of a global movement of a sport long considered the realm of the very young. Not so much anymore, as doors long thought shut have swung back open.

Participation in adult gymnastics — from former competitors like Castellano who returned after a long hiatus to novices trying to get the hang of a forward roll — is soaring.

The National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs serves as a landing spot for gymnasts over 18 at the non-elite, non-NCAA level. While the majority of its membership consists of college students who compete as part of a club, it also offers a “non-student” division, meaning anyone at any age can compete at one of its meets, including its national championships.

NAIGC executive director Ilana Shushansky estimates that 20% of the participants at nationals earlier this year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, registered as “non-students." It's a percentage Shushansky believes will continue to rise, fueled in part by former gymnasts rediscovering — and in many cases redefining — their relationship with the sport that drew them in as kids only to seemingly abandon them as young adults.

“This is allowing them to meet the sport on their terms,” Shushansky said.

That's the way it is for many of those who have made their way to one of the adult camps hosted by Memmel, who retired for good in 2021 and now serves as the co-lead for the USA Gymnastics women's national team when she's not running the gym she and her father, Andy, run in Wisconsin.

Memmel wasn't trying to prove a point when she came out of retirement in 2021. She did anyway. Messages of support poured into her social media accounts as other 30 and 40-somethings latched onto her journey.

The comments often included a common refrain, some version of “hey, we want to get back into gymnastics, too, but how do we do it?"

“It’s that unfinished business,” said 44-year-old Angela Fuller, who like Castellano quit in her teens only to feel the itch to return while watching Memmel in 2021 and now competes at 5280 Gymnastics outside Denver. “It’s that dangling carrot. We needed someone to lead the way and show us that it’s possible and that’s what Chellsie Memmel did for gymnastics.”

In the summer of 2022, Memmel opened registration for an adults-only camp. She hoped 40 people would sign up. Within hours she had to cap enrollment at 75 out of fear she couldn't find enough coaches to handle the workload.

Now several times a year athletes from their 20s to their 50s with various levels of experience — and in the case of some, none at all — spend a weekend at a camp led by an Olympic medalist who has become a touchstone for a movement.

While Memmel sees it as a way of giving back, selfishly there's something in it for her, too. The vibe in the camps are a stark contrast to the culture at the elite level she grew up in, in the best way possible.

“This fills up my cup so much,” said Memmel, whose most recent camp in June had 90 participants. “Their energy, enthusiasm, love for the sport. When we have new coaches come in, they're just like in awe of the gymnasts, the camaraderie and all of the support they give each other.”

Gina Paulhus' expectations were low when she began running a website and created the Facebook group “ Aging Like Fine Wine ” centered on giving adult gymnasts a place where they could connect to the sport and each other.

The group now boasts more than 13,000 members. The website — which has the phrase “this sport is not just for kids anymore!” in all caps on the front page — offers training videos, forums and ways for interested athletes to find classes or a team.

Paulhus also runs an adults-only camp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Back in 2015, she believed hers was the only camp of its kind. Now there are more than 30, not to mention hundreds of meets across the country every year that are open to athletes over 18.

“I think it’s one of those cases where ‘monkey see, monkey do’ and now it's sort of reached this critical mass,” she said.

Things are evolving so rapidly that it's becoming apparent that supply is struggling to keep up with demand.

Memmel says the feedback she hears most often at camps comes from those who essentially coach themselves back at their home gyms because there is no one to fill the void.

One of the biggest issues is insurance. Policies to cover adult classes are substantially more expensive than ones that cover children because of the risk of injury, leading some gym owners to shy away from the opportunity.

That didn't stop Debra Bell when she and her husband opened Triumph Gymnastics, where Castellano trains. One of their main tenets was creating a space where adults could come because, as the former competitive gymnast pointed out, “for some of us, it never leaves you.”

It never did for Castellano, who briefly got into coaching during college before immersing herself in the corporate world.

She believes she is better now at 34 than she was as a teenager, even if her training looks far different than it did two decades ago. She's at the gym for an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays and two hours on Sundays. It's not just her schedule that's changed. Her mindset has, too.

“When I got back into it, I didn’t take it for granted at all because I knew what it was like to not have gymnastics in my life,” she said.

It's a common refrain among her peers. They're not doing this because their parents signed them up. Most of them have families and careers. Their relationship with the sport has evolved from something they are to something they do, a critical shift.

Fuller spent decades bothered by both an ankle injury from the balance beam and the constant sense she needed to excel to earn validation from her parents.

It's not that way anymore. She is part of an adult team at 5280 that boasts more than 40 members. She travels all over the world competing, sometimes in both men's and women's events.

Occasionally she'll receive notes of encouragement from young girls who see the mother of two teenage sons do her thing and realize their love of doing gymnastics doesn't need an expiration date.

“They tell me ‘I can do this at your age,'" Fuller said. “'I can do this forever.’ ... And that's great. Because I'm never leaving."

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

Angela Fuller, 44, trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the high bar as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the high bar as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, rubs chalk on her hands as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, rubs chalk on her hands as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, rubs chalk on her hands as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, rubs chalk on her hands as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the high bar as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the high bar as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, puts on grips as she trains, Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, puts on grips as she trains, Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the uneven parallel bars as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the uneven parallel bars as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, poses as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, poses as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the rings as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, works out on the rings as she trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Angela Fuller, 44, trains at 5280 Gymnastics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will begin deploying as many as 1,500 active duty troops to help secure the southern border in the coming days, U.S. officials said Wednesday, putting in motion plans President Donald Trump laid out in executive orders shortly after he took office to crack down on immigration.

Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses was expected to sign the deployment orders on Wednesday, but it wasn't yet clear which troops or units will go, and the total could fluctuate. It remains to be seen if they will end up doing law enforcement, which would put American troops in a dramatically different role for the first time in decades.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made.

The active duty forces would join the roughly 2,500 U.S. National Guard and Reserve forces already there. There are currently no active duty troops working along the border.

The troops are expected to be used to support border patrol agents, with logistics, transportation and construction of barriers. They have done similar duties in the past, when both Trump and former President Joe Biden sent active duty troops to the border.

Troops are prohibited by law from doing law enforcement duties under the Posse Comitatus Act, but that may change. Trump has directed through executive order that the incoming secretary of defense and incoming homeland security chief report back within 90 days if they think an 1807 law called the Insurrection Act should be invoked. That would allow those troops to be used in civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.

The last time the act was invoked was in 1992 during rioting in Los Angeles in protest of the acquittal of four police officers charged with beating Rodney King.

The widely expected deployment, coming in Trump’s first week in office, was an early step in his long-touted plan to expand the use of the military along the border. In one of his first orders on Monday, Trump directed the defense secretary to come up with a plan to “seal the borders” and repel “unlawful mass migration.”

On Tuesday, just as Trump fired the Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Linda Fagan, the service announced it was surging more cutter ships, aircraft and personnel to the “Gulf of America” — a nod to the president’s directive to rename the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump said during his inaugural address on Monday that “I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places in which they came.”

Military personnel have been sent to the border almost continuously since the 1990s to help address migration. drug trafficking and transnational crime.

In executive orders signed Monday, Trump suggested the military would help the Department of Homeland Security with “detention space, transportation (including aircraft), and other logistics services.”

In his first term, Trump ordered active duty troops to the border in response to a caravan of migrants slowly making its way through Mexico toward the United States in 2018. More than 7,000 active duty troops were sent to Texas, Arizona and California, including military police, an assault helicopter battalion, various communications, medical and headquarters units, combat engineers, planners and public affairs units.

At the time, the Pentagon was adamant that active duty troops would not do law enforcement. So they spent much of their time transporting border patrol agents to and along the border, helping them erect additional vehicle barriers and fencing along the border, assisting them with communications and providing some security for border agent camps.

The military also provided border patrol agents with medical care, pre-packaged meals and temporary housing.

It's also not yet clear if the Trump administration will order the military to use bases to house detained migrants.

Bases previously have been used for that purpose, and after the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban, they were used to host thousands of Afghan evacuees. The facilities struggled to support the influx.

In 2018, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, to prepare to house as many as 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children, but the additional space ultimately wasn’t needed and Goodfellow was determined not to have the infrastructure necessary to support the surge.

In March 2021, the Biden administration greenlighted using property at Fort Bliss, Texas, for a detention facility to provide beds for up to 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children as border crossings increased from Mexico.

The facility, operated by DHS, was quickly overrun, with far too few case managers for the thousands of children that arrived, exposure to extreme weather and dust and unsanitary conditions, a 2022 inspector general report found.

Construction crews replace sections of one of two border walls separating Mexico from the United States, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Construction crews replace sections of one of two border walls separating Mexico from the United States, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Members of the Mexican National Guard patrol as construction crews replace sections of one of two border walls separating Mexico from the United States, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Members of the Mexican National Guard patrol as construction crews replace sections of one of two border walls separating Mexico from the United States, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Volunteers talk in a tent along a border wall separating Mexico from the United States Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Volunteers talk in a tent along a border wall separating Mexico from the United States Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Dogs are near a border wall separating Mexico from the United States Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Dogs are near a border wall separating Mexico from the United States Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

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