Eighteen-year-old Natalie McGiffert will take the floor against gymnasts from across the globe as part of Team USA’s rhythmic gymnastics squad at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Malibu native said having the opportunity to take park part in the summer games “feels unreal.”
“Anytime anyone says it, I feel like we are talking about two different people,” Natalie said. “It has been a dream forever. When every little kid starts a sport, they say, ‘Yea, I want to go to the Olympics.’”
Natalie and the five other members of the U.S. rhythmic gymnastics team qualified for the Olympics because of their performance at the World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
The squad was one of 10 countries to secure spots for next year’s Olympics. Natalie and Team USA finished 13th in the group all-around.
Natalie said the girls worked hard for their success at the early September event in Germany.
“We just tried to do the strongest performance we could,” she said.
The teen is the second athlete from Malibu to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Swimmer Jordan Wilimovsky, a 2012 Malibu High School (MHS) grad, gained a spot on the 2016 U.S. team after he won the men’s 10-kilometer open water swimming race at the 16th annual FINA World Championships on July 27 in Russia.
The rhythmic gymnastics team will begin Olympic practices on Oct. 1 after having a month off. The team will practice two times a day at the North Shore Rhythmic Gymnasts Center in Deerfield, Ill.
Natalie said in preparation for the Olympics, the team, coached by Natasha Klimouk and Margarita Mamzina, will be choreographing two new routines — one with fiber ribbons, and one with two hoops and six clubs.
“We will be getting new music and new choreography,” she said. “It’s going to be a lot of work, but it’s going to be fun.”
The gymnast of 11 years’ journey to next summer’s grand sporting event began when she was a seven-year-old student at Webster Elementary School.
Natalie’s parents, David and Shannon, signed her up for gymnastics classes after they had the only bid for tickets to a gymnastics class at a raffle for Webster. McGiffert said while she was testing for the gymnastics class, a rhythmic gymnastics coach saw her and asked her parents if their daughter would be interested in doing rhythmic gymnastics, the sport that emphasizes dancelike routines.
“We didn’t know what rhythmic was,” Natalie said, “but I tried rhythmic and loved it.”
Natalie said she became serious about the sport when she received her first leotard. She began traveling out of the area for competitions and excelling. In a few years, she was on the radar of the U.S. gymnastics program.
After her freshman year at MHS in the summer of 2012, Natalie and her father moved to the Chicago suburb of Northbrook after she was invited to train with the national gymnastics program. Natalie’s mother stayed in California with her older brother Evan, who was in high school.
David, who is retired, said the move to Illinois with his daughter was life-changing and encompassed a lot of trial and error with concern to finding a place to live, getting Natalie enrolled in the highly rated high school and dealing with expenses.
“We did not know all the things we would have to do after the national team accepted her,” he said. “She had to make all new friends and adapt to an entirely different lifestyle. She did it without a word of complaint. I have learned a lot from her over these years.”
The Olympian said her new Illinois home differs from Malibu.
“In Northbrook, everything seems like it’s in walking distance,” Natalie said. “There is a train that goes into the city,”
She graduated from Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook last May.
The sport has taken Natalie around the world. She has competed in Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Russia.
David said that in January 2014, his daughter had her biggest challenge in the sport. She tore her iliopsoas muscle — the biggest muscle in the abdomen — while training.
“Her sports doctor didn’t think she could continue with rhythmic it was so bad,” David said. “It took her six months of physical therapy, exercise, and sheer will power and determination, but she healed, recovered and regained her strength.”
David said Natalie is now stronger than she was before the accident.
“USA Gymnastics held her spot open and kept her on the team,” he said, “They told her, ‘We need you, we will honor our commitment to you the way you have committed to us.’ I will always thank them for that. And she has paid them back.”
After two years in Northbrook, Natalie returned to Malibu for the first time last week.
“It was the strangest feeling driving down Topanga Canyon and even up our driveway,” she said.
David and Shannon are looking forward to seeing Natalie compete in Rio.
“We know that what she has learned in this very difficult sport will last her the rest of her life … that is a good feeling,” David said.
Natalie said making the Olympics has always been a goal.
“I am kind of already living the ultimate dream. I mean, I’m going to the Olympics,” she said.