Despite the comet-like trajectory of her gymnastics career, which very likely could land Luisa Leal-Restrepo in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, you shouldn’t be entirely surprised if you spot her somewhere on the New Brunswick Campus asleep in her car. When the 19-year-old from Cali, Colombia, isn’t streaking across the tumbling mat during her floor exercise in the Livingston Recreation Center in Piscataway, not to mention studying late into the early hours of the morning, she is looking for rest anywhere she can get it. So between classes or workouts, she catches a few winks in the backseat of her SUV, which she keeps stocked with a pillow and blankets.
Such is the exhilarating, if somewhat exhausting, pace maintained by Leal-Restrepo, the sophomore star of the Scarlet Knights women’s gymnastics team who, en route to being named the East Atlantic Gymnastics League Rookie of the Year, shattered two university records in both the vault and all-around competitions, benchmarks that had stood for more than a decade. When she isn’t turning heads representing Rutgers in NCAA competitions, she is also a senior elite gymnast on the Colombian National gymnastics team and was a member of the 2010 World Team. She has two coaches tending to her every move, Louis Levine of Rutgers and Juan Agudelo of the Colombian team, who are anticipating great things for the effervescent Leal-Restrepo. Although she was chosen to compete in the Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, in October, she was forced to sit out the prestigious event because of an injury.
“Sometimes, because of all the working out, studying, and driving I do, it feels like I am breaking myself,” says Leal-Restrepo, who became a gymnast at age 7 and considers the floor routine her best event, though the uneven bars are her favorite. “I work hard for both of my teams and I study a lot—I want to get my Ph.D. The collegiate season is 15 weeks long, and just thinking about it makes my body sore. You compete every single weekend; at the end of the season, if you are not broken, you have some pain. Two weeks after the college season is over, the elite season begins. So I have no time to rest. I’m doing the same gymnastics; it’s just that your body never gets to rest.”
Still, Leal-Restrepo wouldn’t have it any other way. Since arriving at Rutgers after falling hard for the New Brunswick Campus during a round of visits to colleges under her consideration (she was offered full scholarships from nine universities), she loves her classes in sports management, professors, and fellow students. She is perhaps most grateful for the friendliness she finds at Rutgers. “Whenever you ask for help,” she says, “somebody is there for you. This has made a big difference for me because I am so far away from my family in Colombia.”
A sense of camaraderie also pervades her experience with the Scarlet Knights gymnastics team. In Colombia, despite being a member of a prestigious team, Leal-Restrepo, like all the women, typically practices alone during the week and only convenes for a competition before parting ways once again with the gymnasts. At Rutgers, she has learned that although gymnastics is a series of individual competitions, it is also a team sport. She is now representing Rutgers, she realizes. “Suddenly, I wasn’t caring only about myself; I was also caring about how my teammates did. It taught me how to support them, and taught me I can have support from them, too. Now, I know if I do well, they are there to applaud. And if I don’t do so well, they are there to hug me.”
But far more often than not, Leal-Restrepo basks in applause, and her infectious enthusiasm for gymnastics remains as strong as when she fell in love with it all those years ago. “I’ve come all this way,” she says, “so now it’s time to show everyone. I have to fight for my team, fight for my uniform, and fight for that R.”
— Danielle Weber-Soares