@uclagymnastics: History. Made.

@GraceGraceglenn became the first gymnast in NCAA history to score a leadoff 🔟 on the balance beam. Congratulations, GG!

Oksana Chusovitina stayed in gymnastics partly for her little boy, so it seems fitting that her son Alisher, now 20, is the one who has finally convinced her to step back.

Chusovitina, 44, is the doyenne of world gymnastics, a woman whose longevity has surpassed expectations, confounded statistics and delighted a legion of adult gymnasts. At her eighth Olympic Games this summer, Chusovitina will break her own record for most Olympics attended by a single gymnast. That she’s done it in an era where the sport has gotten progressively harder and globally more competitive only adds to her legend.

After three decades, five national teams and some tens of thousands of vaults, the end of the odyssey is in sight. Chusovitina has let it be known that Tokyo will be her final Olympics, though she has said the same before at past Games and then casually shown up at the next World Cup event. Others have focused on her age, on the fact that she’ll be the oldest gymnast in 100 years to walk the floor in Tokyo; Chusovitina herself generally shies away from such things, preferring to let her skills speak for themselves.

To Agence France Presse this week, however, she conceded that Alisher’s influence, namely his concern that she could injure herself, proved the deciding factor in the retirement that she always put off. “He worries about me a lot, that I might get a bad injury or fall,” Chusovitina said. She stayed in for the sake of her son; for his sake she will finally bow out.

UCLA Gymnastics ends homophobia 🏳️‍🌈