Suni Lee, of the United States, falls on the beam during the women’s artistic gymnastics individual balance beam finals in Bercy Arena at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, in Paris, France.
Many people have dreamed of Olympic glory at some point. TikTok’s latest trend is making light of those lofty ambitions.
“Sad to Announce I Did Not Make the Cut for Paris 2024,” is the hilarious trend making its rounds on the social media platform. Over 30 million posts use the phrase while highlighting a wonky spectacle of various athletic attempts.
The template is relatively straightforward: Most videos take place at some kind of athletic facility, like a track field or swimming pool, and a jazzed-up version of the American national anthem plays in the background. Then, the subject in the video is getting ready to execute some kind of skill — then promptly, and hilariously, fails.
Gabe Coaster’s post on the platform has over half a million views and begins with a video of him racing down a runway with a vaulting pole.
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Coaster’s clip shows him heaving forward in an attempt to clear the bar before snapping back and hitting the ground with a visceral, forceful smack.
“A friend sent me one of the diving (memes), and they were like, ‘Oh, you should do this trend, but do it with that funny pole vault video that you had,’” Coaster explains to TODAY.com in a recent interview of how he came to participate in the trend.
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He says the video was taken five years ago when he was in his junior year of high school.
“I was starting on a new pole, and that was my first time jumping on it, actually,” he recalls. “I was nervous going into the jump. It was a really big pole for me, and I planted too late, and the pole jumped out of the box and into the mat, and it just completely rejected me.”
The 22-year-old content creator has since moved on from his pole vaulting career. He might not be at the 2024 Paris Olympics, but he says he is paying attention to the sport from his heydays.
“I’m watching the pole vaulters,” he says of what’s captured his attention the past couple of weeks, mentioning that he was "excited" to see Swedish Mondo Duplantis perform at the time (since TODAY.com spoke to Coaster, Duplantis broke his own world record on Aug. 5).
Thirteen million accounts have liked a post shared by @www.ihaveacrushonyou, which shows the user leaping off of a diving board only to do a backward flop into a pool.
User @tiptoeininmy used footage of her effort to wrangle the uneven bars. The post, which has over 14 million views, shows her flinging with speed from the bars and past her landing mat. After her crash landing, she humbly manages the classic gymnast salute while still down and out.
“You still saluting got me weak,” one user wrote.
“Very unique dismount indeed!” another commented.
Mackenzie Wren's take on the meme sees her flop, tumble and cling to the balance beam. Speaking to TODAY.com, she explains the video is a window into her brief career as a gymnast in high school, which began during her freshman year.
“I did gymnastics only in high school, really. I just did it for fun,” Wren, who goes by the TikTok username @mermaidmackenzie, explains. “It was like a good little social aspect thing for me.”
Wren recalls her family attending the gymnastics meet in her video, and that she had "only really nailed the cartwheel on the beam during practice." Despite it being a new skill, she decided to go for it in front of the crowd.
“I just remember falling onto the beam and my leg hurting a bit. I found it kind of funny because I was like, ‘Wow, I just did that in front of all those people,’” she continues. “I didn’t think too much about it; I just popped back up, laughed it off, and got right back on the beam to finish my routine.”
Wren says the meme is a reminder that sports don't have to always be taken so seriously and that fun is at its core.
“In the moment, I was just having fun with my routine,” she recalls. “I fell, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Everyone falls, like, that’s the whole point of sports.”
Even Team USA gymnast Suni Lee, who won one gold and two bronze medals at the Paris Olympics, jumped on the TikTok trend — but with a twist.
Lee posted the video on Aug. 6, a day after she and teammate Simone Biles didn’t podium at the balance beam finals, and it showed the moment when she fell during her routine. She tweaked her message to say, "Unfortunately I was selected for the Olympics ❤️"
"You won this trend😭," one user wrote.
"You win the internet gold medal," another penned.
A third wrote, "The way you made this.... You are EPIC. Your sense of humor is now legendary."
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from Today:
