World Champion Blakely Trades Podium for the Classroom and SEC Season

Skye Blakely returned from the world championships with a gold medal and walked into a dining hall, where her Florida teammates surrounded her to celebrate. The attention has not stopped since. Classmates, passers-by and professors have stopped her around the Gainesville campus to say they know what she has overcome and are proud of her.

Blakely, 21, won the world all-around title on Friday, 28 months after rupturing her right Achilles tendon during podium training at the 2024 Olympic trials. She also earned bronze medals on vault and uneven bars at the competition, plus a silver medal with the team. She cried as she hugged coach Owen Field after her final floor score came in. "It was just so surreal," Blakely told ESPN over Zoom on Thursday. "Reflecting on how far I had come from injury, from emotional hardship, just to work so hard to even be at that meet and to win gold, it just really meant so much to me."

Her path to the title was blocked by injuries. At 16, she tore the ulnar collateral ligament in her left elbow while warming up on vault at Olympic trials for Tokyo. She returned in 2022 and helped the U.S. team to a world title, but fell off the balance beam in her only individual final. She made the team again in 2023 and again fell off beam during qualifying. In 2024, she finished second in the all-around at national championships behind Simone Biles, then ruptured her right Achilles on floor. "I'm devastated and heartbroken but I believe everything happens for a reason," Blakely wrote on Instagram at the time.

With the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics less than two years away, Blakely has secured her place on the U.S. team roster. Before that, she returns to practice on Monday to prepare for the 2027 NCAA season. Florida won the SEC title in March but finished third at the national championships behind Oklahoma and LSU. Blakely was the runner-up on bars at both the SEC and NCAA championships last season and earned two perfect 10.0 scores, on bars and beam. Kayla DiCello, a teammate who ruptured her Achilles at the same 2026 trials, said having Blakely through the recovery helped her: "Having Skye through this whole process was something that I really loved."

Blakely has not missed a team activity this fall semester while training for worlds. During the team's August retreat in Sarasota, the Gators revised "The Promise," a mantra they introduced last season after former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow's 2008 speech. "If we can truly hold ourselves to that promise, it's like we're showing love and respect for all the girls on the team," Blakely said. She has continued training elite routines during the NCAA season, adding hours in the gym after team practice ends.

Blakely traces her ambition to 2012, when she was seven and watched Gabby Douglas win Olympic all-around gold in London. "It really opened my mind, seeing her, someone who looked like me, and her just succeeding being young as well," Blakely said. She was in a nutrition education classroom on Thursday taking a midterm, with a microbiology lab exam scheduled for Friday morning. "It's a lot of hard work but it's not that overwhelming," Blakely said.