Manalapan Trampoline World Champion Aims For 2028 Olympics

MANALAPAN, NJ — Alexandra Mytnik is not shy about what her long-term goals are: She wants to make the US Olympic team in trampoline gymnastics by 2028.

The 13-year-old gymnast from Manalapan is well on her way to getting there, having recently taken home a gold medal in her age group at the 2021 Trampoline & Tumbling World Age Group Competitions held in Baku, Azerbaijan, at the end of November 2021. It's the highest level she can compete at with her age.

"I've been wanting to go to this competition for over two, three years and I finally did," Alexandra, who has won several age-group national championships, told Patch.

This was just the strong finish after a year where Alexandra conquered first places in three national competitions, in Alabama, Ohio and Missouri.

She won't be old enough to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris but is planning to make it to Los Angeles in 2028.

"My goal is slowly build up my experience so I'm not that nervous when I compete. Getting experience and getting better by the year," Alexandra said.

The 13-year-old goes to school and trains about six times a week.

"I mostly get motivation from my friends because I train with a team. And I'm really good friends with them now. Seeing them do stuff motivates me to do stuff," she said.

Teammate Ava DeHanes of Holmdel won bronze in the same world competition in November.

"Obviously my long-term goals of getting to the Olympics, I have to get there step by step. New skills, getting better, jumping higher."

She also has the support of a family of athletes. Many of her relatives have competed at a high level and won competitions in different parts of the world.

"I think definitely we have some expectations to live up to because our parents and grandparents are all like world and European champions (in acro gymnastics)," she said, "Just kind of following in their footsteps. It's awesome because they get to kind of tell their stories and kind of walk us through the process."

Alexandra's parents own a gym in Manalapan called Rising Stars Gymnastics Academy. In addition, she trains with a trampoline team at Elite Trampoline Academy in Red Bank.

"She has her coaches there and then our coaches here. Our dad, our family," sister Nicole Mytnik, 20, said. "So I think she has an advantage with that because she has the gym open for her 24/7. And then she practices six times a week."

Nicole, who also did gymnastics, now helps manage the family’s gym.

With a family of athletes, it's not that hard to imagine 3-year-old Alexandra jumping into gymnastics. She started at her dad's gym and began practicing on the trampoline by age 5. She did both gymnastics and trampoline for years and quit the former when she was 9, choosing instead to focus on the latter.

"Ever since then I've been sticking with trampoline, going to competitions every season," she said. "Around when I was 10, I started going to the nationals competitions."

Alexandra said that one of her proudest moments in gymnastics was overcoming the mental block she struggled with for about nine months in 2020.

"I pretty much lost all of my skills. I could not get over it, I kept doing more flips or more twists than I was supposed to do," she said. "I really started losing motivation and started getting not as motivated to do stuff. I didn't want to practice anymore. (...) I thought no way, to myself, I was ever going to overcome it, because I just couldn't believe in myself."

Things started to shift after she started practicing at Elite Trampoline Academy.

"I fixed my mental block," Alexandra said. "I started practicing with all my friends and it helped me overcome my mental block. And of course my recent competition."

In December, Alexandra was recognized by Manalapan Township officials at a council meeting.

"We are very proud of Alexandra's accomplishments and we wish her continued success in her future," the township wrote in a statement.

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