Sports
Inside UCLA gymnast Emma Malabuyo's push to juggle classes and qualify for the Olympics
At 7:20 a.m. sharp, Emma Malabuyo steps out of the elevator across from Pauley Pavilion. A poster of her dressed in a sparkly blue leotard faces the front door of UCLA’s Acosta Training Center. It represents only one of the junior’s goals on this campus.
Malabuyo is a star contributor for the Bruins, who are chasing their first appearance in the NCAA championship final since 2019. Toting a black backpack across campus, she is also a full-time student with aspirations of a career in sports broadcasting. A reminder of her latest dream is hanging around her neck — a gold necklace with a pendant of the Olympic rings.
UCLA junior gymnast Emma Malabuyo smiles while stretching before practice at Yates Gym on the Bruins’ campus. Malabuyo is juggling a busy schedule, trying to qualify for the Olympics while competing for UCLA and taking classes.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
While a goal as lofty as the Olympics often requires full dedication, Malabuyo is attempting an especially ambitious balancing act. Her road to Paris begins Thursday in Cairo, where she will compete in the first of three World Cup meets with hopes of earning an Olympic berth while representing the Philippines.
The busy schedule has been overwhelming at points. She was worried professors wouldn’t accommodate her travel schedule that will take her to Egypt, Germany and Azerbaijan in the span of four weeks. UCLA started its season with three consecutive road meets, fighting through the airport on a weekly basis between long training workouts. Some days, she can barely lift her arm above shoulder height after undergoing surgery during the summer.
But through the aches and pains, late nights and early mornings, the 21-year-old never stops smiling.
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1. UCLA junior gymnast Emma Malabuyo balances elite training while taking classes on campus and online. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) 2. UCLA junior gymnast Emma Malabuyo studies for a midterm on the Bruins’ campus. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“Since I’m focused on so many different things and I’m enjoying them, it’s helping me have more energy and fire for this dream,” Malabuyo said.
Energy is the key ingredient for this Olympic hopeful. The Times recently shadowed Malabuyo during a day in her busy life.
7:20 a.m.: Treatment at Acosta center
The sun is still low on a bright morning when Malabuyo scans her fingerprint to enter Acosta Training Center, UCLA’s primary athletic training facility. As she walks into the training room packed with massage tables, weights and treadmills, athletes from all UCLA sports are preparing for the day. She starts at a binder where she and her teammates log their sleep from every night. Only six hours. She was studying for a midterm.
Malabuyo sets up on a padded training table, waiting for the gymnastics team’s trainer Tracy Sokoler to massage her shoulder and legs. Her shoulder is especially tight. It’s been two days since she competed on bars, beam and floor at UCLA’s dual meet against Washington on Jan. 27.
UCLA junior gymnast Emma Malabuyo, right, and freshman Alex Irvine stand in an ice bath.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Malabuyo didn’t used to have to do all this. When she started at UCLA, she could show up for practice 10 or 15 minutes early, warm up and get started. The one time she slept in recently, thinking she could get away without her 45-minute, pre-practice massage and activation routine of squats, lunches and resistance band exercises, she couldn’t take any landings on her ailing knee.
“My body feels just so much older,” Malabuyo said.
After more than a decade of training 36 hours a week with hopes of making the U.S. Olympic team, Malabuyo was happy to retire from elite gymnastics after being named an alternate for the Tokyo Olympics. The five-time U.S. national team member brushed off Filipino gymnastics officials when they first approached her about switching federations last year. She couldn’t bear training at elite levels anymore, she thought.
UCLA junior gymnast Emma Malabuyo, foreground, works out on the balance beam at Yates Gym.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“The expectations in America, you need to be up here no matter what,” Malabuyo said, raising her hand to her eye level. “Your difficulty needs to be up here. You need to be like this. In the Philippines, we just appreciate you doing gymnastics for us.”
With reassurance from the Filipino federation that she could perform her college-level routines, Malabuyo competed at the Asian Championships last summer after writing a letter to USA Gymnastics requesting an International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) nationality change. Representing her grandparents’ home country, she won silver on floor, the highest placement ever for a Filipina gymnast at the Asian Championships.
Suddenly she started dreaming of the Olympics again.
8 a.m.: Practice at Yates Gym
UCLA gymnastics assistant coach Autumn Grable reviews the day’s workout plans with athletes.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
A group of gymnasts crowd around a white board. Assistant coach Autumn Grable spells out the assignment. It’s a light day.
Mondays in Yates Gym are often reserved for refining details with more drills than big skills. When Malabuyo jumps onto the beam for the warm-up, even the simplest cartwheel is garnished with a perfect finishing pose.
What’s helping me go towards this dream is that there’s a lot of flexibility. … It’s more of, just go out to these competitions, do what you can, do the best that you can do and go out there with no regrets.
— UCLA gymnast Emma Malabuyo, who is trying to qualify for the Paris Olympics
Malabuyo balances her collegiate routines — which are geared toward impeccable form instead of maximum difficulty — and her elite skills by working on her upgraded elements every other day. When she competes in the World Cup events, hoping to earn Olympic qualification on beam or floor, her routines will mostly stay the same. She will add difficulty on beam by changing her dismount and tweaking some combinations. On floor, she will add a triple wolf turn and get more difficulty on her leap series while competing her Paula Abdul routine from last season.
The routine changes weren’t mandates from Filipino coaches. Instead, Malabuyo used her own understanding of the code of points to maximize her difficulty while constructing her routines. Instead of choreographers scripting every movement for her, Malabuyo sends different videos to national team coaches and judges for feedback. They trust her with her skills.
UCLA junior gymnast Emma Malabuyo, center, balances elite training while attending classes on the Bruins’ campus and online.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“I’m really enjoying this process and I’m taking ownership of my gymnastics,” Malabuyo said. “I think that’s a big piece that’s very different than what I did before. … It’s a partnership with my coaches and we’re working together.”
With Tokyo in mind, Malabuyo woke up at 5:50 a.m. three years ago. She got to the gym at 6:30 a.m. and practiced until noon. After going to the chiropractor and getting treatment or physical therapy, she returned at 4 p.m. for a second practice. Every day, she completed, at minimum, six full beam routines without wobbles.
Looking back, she admits she didn’t enjoy it.
With the same lofty dream three years later, Malabuyo doesn’t seem to carry the same weight. She manages her aching joints by completing two beam routines a day and working on mental visualization that has her feeling more confident in her gymnastics than ever. She gets to laugh with her teammates during practices. She cheers them on during meets.
She enjoys this.
UCLA junior gymnast Emma Malabuyo, center, stands between teammates Sydney Barros, left, and Nya Reed during a team huddle.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“Doing all those extra things really contributes to my overall happiness and joy,” Malabuyo said. “And when I’m feeling happy, I can do anything.”
At the end of the three-hour practice, Malabuyo grabs her phone out of the organizer hanging on the wall and takes her jewelry out of her locker. She fastens chunky gold hoop earrings and clips on her gold Olympic necklace.
12:21 p.m.: Study break outside Powell Library
Malabuyo grabs her first meal of the day at 12:08 p.m. from inside the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame, where there is a grab-and-go buffet for athletes. Sitting on a bench outside of Powell Library, she spreads a to-go container filled with steak, fish, asparagus, baked potato and pineapple across her lap. She only eats a few bites. She pulls a notebook out of her backpack and begins mumbling key words under her breath to prepare for her midterm in mass communication and sociology.
This quarter, Malabuyo is taking three classes, including a musicology course and a theater class, that all meet online. But exams are in person. Although she was a scholastic All-American last year, Malabuyo still gets more nervous for tests than any beam routine. She was home schooled since she was 11 and is used to taking tests alone.
UCLA junior gymnast Emma Malabuyo wears a gold necklace featuring Olympic rings as she studies for a midterm on the Bruins’ campus.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Chasing the Olympics as a gymnast is often an isolating, all-consuming endeavor in the United States. Malabuyo quit public school when she moved from Milpitas to Texas in 2013. Her club coach Elisabeth Crandall-Howell was taking a collegiate job at California and recommended Malabuyo join Texas Dreams, one of the country’s premiere elite gyms. Her parents and two siblings uprooted their lives for her to get a shot at the Olympics.
Before competing at the 2021 Olympic Trials, she broke down in tears. Malabuyo told her parents that it felt like the last 12 years of her life all came down to four minutes of competition.
She considered deferring school for a year to chase the Olympics again. Teammates Jordan Chiles (United States) and Ana Padurariu (Canada) already did so. But Malabuyo knew she didn’t want to go on the road solo again. Although there is more on her plate, she’s happy to carry it all.
“What’s helping me go towards this dream is that there’s a lot of flexibility in different things and different aspects of my life that just fills up my cup,” Malabuyo said. “There’s so many different things that I have instead of [being] focused on this one thing — one and only, it’s the end-all, be-all. I’m not putting that pressure on myself. It’s more of, just go out to these competitions, do what you can, do the best that you can do and go out there with no regrets.”
UCLA junior gymnast Emma Malabuyo practices impeccable form on the beam at Yates Gym.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
To qualify for the Olympics, Malabuyo will compete on beam and floor in World Cup events in Cairo (Thursday through Sunday), Cottbus, Germany (Feb. 22-25), and Baku, Azerbaijan (March 7-10). Gymnasts accumulate points throughout the World Cup Series by finishing in the top 16 on each apparatus. Excluding gymnasts from countries that have already qualified for the Games, Malabuyo must finish the World Cup meets in the top two in the points standings on either apparatus to punch her ticket to Paris.
Malabuyo occasionally allows herself to imagine what it would be like to compete in the Olympics. She pictures traveling to Paris and entering the Olympic arena. She’s not the only one dreaming big.
While Malabuyo is reviewing her notes a final time before her exam, Alex Peros, a former UCLA water polo player, walks by. Peros sits down next to Malabuyo and says she and her family already have tickets for the Paris Olympics. Peros raises her eyebrows. Malabuyo smiles.
“Hopefully,” she says.
But first, this Olympic hopeful has a midterm.
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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