The US Women’s Gymnastics team has won 8 medals—which may be down to the excellence of the effervescent Simone Biles, although it may have furrier explanations.
All throughout the games, Beacon the golden retriever has been within petting distance of any one of the five members who may feel some pre-performance jitters.
The topic of mental health in gymnastics has never been far from stories about the US Olympic team after Biles decided to withdraw from the Tokyo games in 2020 to focus on her own mind state.
At the time, news of the scope of sexual harassment and exploitation of Olympic gymnasts by former team doctor Larry Nassar had already been in the news for two years.
Beacon has been with the team since it was undergoing Olympic trials in Minneapolis. With so many hopeful young gymnasts sitting jittery on the sidelines waiting for their turn, what could have been better for their nerves than a big oafish golden retriever walking by and sticking it’s big blonde schnoz into their hand?
Beacon followed the team to Paris where he has become a hit among rival teams as well.
Tokyo Olympic all-around champion Suni Lee posted a picture of herself with the shiny-nosed pooch from the trials. “Thank god for Beacon,” read her caption, helping launch him to stardom.
He is a professional stress dog and therefore of course has an official Instagram account. His trainer is the former rhythmic gymnastics coach Tracey Callahan Molnar, who says the dog has incredible powers of intuition and empathy. He will find exactly which member of the team is the most nervous and go offer his services as a comfort dog, should they accept it.
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Molnar’s previous golden was Tulsa, who passed away in 2019. Molnar went to the exact same Michigan breeder to adopt Beacon, such was Tulsa’s excellence at his job.
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