Before TODAY's Hoda Kotb sat down with the five gymnasts named to the U.S. women's gymnastics team, she was in the stands cheering them on at the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials over the weekend.
Hoda cheered, clapped, danced and screamed in anticipation from the stands of the Target Center in Minneapolis, as men and women from across the U.S. gave their top performances to try to make it to the national teams.
"That girl's going," Hoda exclaimed as she watched a performance, according to a Instagram compilation of her reactions. "Come on!"
Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera were the five gymnasts selected to represent Team USA by the end of the trials on June 30, with Joscelyn Roberson and Leanne Wong named as alternates.
Hoda couldn't help but jump up from her seat, screaming and yelling after watching Lee's uneven bar routine, even throwing her fist in the air and wolf-whistling to show her excitement and support.
The TODAY co-anchor also met up with Biles' family, giving hugs and exchanging words with many members of Biles' squad.
And Hoda's hype didn't stop there — she was seen clapping, dancing and hugging members of the team as they arrived for their TODAY sit-down interview after being named to Team USA.
Hoda told the gymnasts she thought the Olympic trials may be more difficult than the Olympics themselves, and Biles responded saying there was deep talent at the trials.
“Because of the depth that the U.S., it's so incredible, so we’re all fighting for basically the same position,” Biles said. “But that’s what makes Team USA Team USA. We have grit, we have power, we have grace. We kind of have everything. So (we’re) just fighting for that spot.”
Biles added that being named to the team with many of her 2020 Olympics teammates felt like déjà vu.
"But also I feel like a little bit of a redemption tour,” she said. “In Tokyo, we all didn’t have our best performances, so we’re excited to go out there and kill it.”
Chiles agreed that the Tokyo games were "a really tough time for a majority of us."
"Knowing that this is kind of like redemption, and struggles are struggles, but also roads are roads as well, and going down that right road just made it seem a lot better," she said. "So that emotion was just like, ‘I’m here! I won! This is crazy, wow!’”
Carey echoed Biles and Chiles' comments: "I think like they’ve been saying, we all have some sort of redemption that we want, so it’s just incredible to be able to be sitting here today and truly enjoying the gymnastics that I’m doing and having fun with all these girls."
Lee, who won the all-around gold medal in Tokyo, said returning to the team "feels absolutely insane" following her recent health issues, which includes two types of kidney disease.
“It was just such a hard, incredible journey. There were so many times where I thought about quitting and just giving up because I was so sick and it was just so hard to, like, stay motivated, watching everybody get better, and I can’t even get back into the gym and constantly self-doubting myself,” she said.
“But once I had those people around me who lifted me up and supported me, I knew that this is something that I wanted," she continued.
Rivera is the lone gymnast set to make her Olympic debut in Paris, telling Hoda: “It feels so surreal. I cannot believe that I’m here right now. It’s just all my hard work has been paying off. I’m so excited to represent Team USA at the Olympics. I’m shocked.”
