Gymnast from Lee's Summit qualifies for 2024 Summer Olympics

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A gymnast from Lee’s Summit has qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Aleah Finnegan, now a collegiate gymnast at Louisiana State University, qualified after her performance at the 2023 Artistic Gymnastic World Championships representing the Philippines earlier this month in Belgium.

KSHB 41's Lindsay Shively first met Finnegan in 2019 while she was training for the U.S. Gymnastics Championships that were in Kansas City that year.

Then, she told Shively, “I think the Olympics first popped in my head probably when I was about five years old.”

This week she said, “When I dreamt of the Olympics, I had no idea it would be ’24, but here we are, and you know, representing the Philippines and so it’s just amazing how it all unfolded.”

Finnegan said she thought her elite gymnastics career or any chance of becoming an Olympian was over in 2021. She was focused on collegiate gymnastics.

Then she got the chance to represent the Philippines in competition. She said her mother grew up in the Philippines. One of her sisters, Sarah, had been an alternate for the Team USA Olympic gymnastics team in 2012.

She talked about what it is like to represent the country where her mother grew up.

“It’s such an honor, truly, because I wouldn’t be here if she, you know, if she hadn’t been who she is,” she said. “It’s hard because she moved to the states when she was about 18 years old and like, I’m 20 and I can’t even imagine moving to a completely different country, not speaking the language at 18 years old,” she said.

Finnegan continued, “To be able to represent her and my Grandma and just, she has seven other siblings and so representing the whole family line is truly an honor.”