How It Started
So for people who don’t know, you’ve got quite a story about overcoming adversity very early in your life! Tell us a little bit about your background, and then what it was about doing gymnastics that really spoke to you.
I was born in Columbus, actually, I’m originally from here. I was born at Riverside Hospital. Being born a normal, healthy baby, but then going to my 10-day check up, the doctors really quickly noticed something was wrong. I went back and got some testing, and then they told my parents I was getting heart surgery the next day. So that was a very big shock for my parents. I’m the firstborn of the family, so I had a pretty interesting introduction to the world, I guess I would say! So pretty much simplified down, one of my arteries going to my heart was too small, so they had to cut that part out and stitch the big parts together to allow that blood flow to my heart. And so now I have a heart murmur. After that, pretty soon my parents realized that they could not take care of me by themselves. They needed that extra support. We moved back to my hometown, Hubbard, Ohio, and in with my grandparents.
They helped me through it all. I developed Colic, too, and from what my grandparents and parents told me is that I would cry nonstop every day. My grandpa said he would carry me up and down the stairs for hours, just trying to get me to feel a little bit better. Interestingly enough, swinging really helped! Whenever they put me in the swing, I would fall right asleep, just that motion of going back and forth, and I would do that for hours. If they needed a break, they would just put me in the swing, and I would sleep for hours!
When I was about 3 years-old, my parents realized, ‘Okay, we need to put this girl in something. She’s crazy. She has so much energy!’ They put me in gymnastics, and I loved it! And funny enough, too, my pediatrician told me that gymnastics was actually the best sport for me to be in because it’s that high intensity energy, but for a very short amount of time. Ever since then, I loved the feeling of flying and just jumping around, doing new skills, doing things just to see if I could do it.
Every year, I had my check ups and as I got older, it was every two years. Thankfully, every year that I’ve gone back, it’s been good. My heart has been growing with me. And the only thing is, I had two restrictions. One was I couldn’t go in hot tubs just because of how high my heart rate would get. And then the other bigger one, I would say, would be I wasn’t able to lift weights because of the same thing, the heart exertion. All the way up until I was 18, I wasn’t able to lift weights. Going into college, I had my checkup and I was actually cleared, and they said I could lift weights, which was awesome. I mean, at the time I was like, ‘No, now I have to lift weights! Are you kidding me?’ (laughs). I went 18 years without having to, but couldn’t have been more of a blessing because lifting weights and doing those is such a big part of college gymnastics, too!
I’m kind of in shock of where I started and where I am today, and super thankful for all of the opportunities I’ve been given. I think because of that not so great start, it’s really propelled me to know, okay, if I was strong, as strong as I was, as resilient as I was as a baby, how strong and resilient can I be now as a 22 year-old woman? That always helps keep me going, because I know if that little girl, if that little baby can do it, then I can do it!
Have you always been a performer at heart, or is that something that a coach or a choreographer along the way had to really pull out of you?
I’d say both! When I was little, I was dancing before I could walk! I guess my parents and grandparents remember me dancing in my basement to Neil Diamond all the time. We actually have the home videos on the VCR tapes. We still have videos of me just just dancing to one and then like, stopping at the end and then just picking up right away and the next song just for hours, just dancing and making up choreography, even when I was 5 years-old! So I think dancing has always kind of been in my blood. As I got into gymnastics and as I got into unique floor routines and unique music, I had a choreographer, her name was Irena, who really propelled my dancing career, I guess I would say. She always encouraged me to be myself and do the crazy facial expressions and just just do Claire. She really helped me through JO (Junior Olympic) to kind of come into my own and be that performer that’s just fun and a little bit unconventional, especially [now] with the Pac-Man and the Star Wars routine, and swimming on the floor with with the Jaws music – those were (Ohio State head coach) Meredith Paulicivic’s ideas, which at first, at least for the Pac-Man, I was like, ‘Pac Man?!’ (laughs).
But I could not have loved it more! I can play a character and I can show a story when I’m dancing, which I think is such an amazing thing to be able to do.
