Leanne Wong was a member of the 2023 and 2022 gold-medal winning world championship U.S. women's artistic gymnastics team. In Team USA’s Woman to Woman series, Wong sits down with women’s sports personality Ari Chambers to discuss her inspirations growing up, what it's like to balance a business as an elite athlete and more on the road to the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
Loading...
"I looked up to a lot of gymnasts, but I always remember Nastia Liukin and when she became the Olympic champion and I just remember her gymnastics style was so beautiful and it was really inspiring."
Ari: Tell us about how you started your own company and how that came about.
Leanne: My company started in December of 2021 after I went to my first World Championships and won two medals there. So I just used that whole winter break to get my website together, take a picture of all the bows, and that's just when my business launched. And now I've been so thankful to sell over 10,000 bows as well as my leos. And I've also started making tshirts.
Ari: Oh, I love that. Who did you look up to growing up? I just have to know.
Leanne: I looked up to a lot of gymnasts, but I always remember Nastia Liukin and when she became the Olympic champion and I just remember her gymnastic style was so beautiful and it was really inspiring.
"My company started in December of 2021 after I went to my first World Championships and won two medals there. So I just used that whole winter break to get my website together, take a picture of all the bows, and that's just when my business launched. And now I've been so thankful to sell over 10,000 bows as well as my leos. And I've also started making tshirts."
Ari: How does it feel that you're somebody's Nastia Liukin or you're somebody's favorite athlete growing up?
Leanne: I mean, that would be a dream come true. I mean, as a little gymnast, I was always looking up to gymnasts at Worlds and Olympics. And now that I'm in this place, I mean, it's actually unbelievable, just to have so many little girls looking up to me.
Ari: I want to know before we let you go, what are you most proud of Leanne Wong for?
Leanne: Honestly, I'm just super proud of where I am right now because I am balancing a lot between college gymnastics, elite gymnastics, taking my college courses on the pre-med track and running my business. So I think just learning about time management and how to balance it all.
"I'm just super proud of where I am right now because I am balancing a lot between college gymnastics, elite gymnastics, taking my college courses on the pre-med track and running my business."
