COPPELL, Texas — Staring down the vault platform in front of her, Emma Malabuyo takes a deep breath before taking a full-speed run toward it, hand-springing off of the trampoline in front, and backflipping for two rotations through the air, landing on a pad below. Malabuyo gets back to her feet to walk back to the starting point and take another run at it, and then another after that. Each time she’s as laser focused in her attention and as serious in her delivery as if she was at the Olympic Games in that very moment.

That intensity isn’t new for her though, her coaches say it’s just how she operates every time she walks into Texas Dreams Gymnastics in Coppell, Texas, for one of her daily, four-hour training sessions.

“I’ve been doing it ever since I was 5 years old, so a long time,” said Malabuyo, now 18 years old.

While her training sessions are always focused, you can’t blame Malabuyo for being even more focused right now, trying to get a little extra air on each flip, because after years of training like “the big one” is coming, it now really is.

Last month at the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Qualifiers in St. Louis, Malabuyo realized her life-long dream of making the cut for that biggest of gymnastics events. She qualified for Team USA as an alternate. While that means she may or may not actually be called to compete in an event, she will travel to Tokyo for the games this month and will be ready to back up the starting line-up of the team if needed.

She said, when it’s Team USA at the Olympics, her actual position doesn’t matter.

“I’m just so happy just to be a part of the team,” said Malabuyo, her smile overtaking her face as she thought about it more.

As she adjusted the bars to her height for the next portion of her training, the teen said really the alternate position creates its own challenges for her.

“It’s a really hard position to be in because you want to be mentally ready but you just don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Malabuyo. “So you want to be ready at the same time but you also don’t want to be too relaxed because you don’t know if you’re competing.”

That’s partially why the young gymnast always trains like she’s about to step onto the world stage.

“We just keep doing what we’re doing,” said Malabuyo’s coach Kim Zmeskal. “Just keep trying to get just a little more.”

That’s advice, now, from one Olympian to another.

Malabuyo moved with her family to the North Texas community of Flower Mound about 8 years ago so she could train under Zmeskal at Texas Dreams in near-by Coppell. Having always been her dream to compete in the Olympics, Malabuyo wanted a coach who had already lived that dream, and that’s certainly Zmeskal who competed at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, taking the bronze medal with Team USA.

Zmeskal said the sport has certainly changed since ‘her time’ competing, but that her and Malabuyo had developed a strong team bond and working relationship to compete at the top of their game today.

“Honestly it’s just been us getting to know each other in our roles that has made it so this year can be what she wants it to be,” said the ’92 Olympian turned coach.

Zmeskal said she couldn’t be prouder of what Malabuyo has accomplished already and she looks forward to making the trip with her to Tokyo to take on whatever they’re called to do there.

After all, Malabuyo said she is literally living a dream right now, and she doesn’t plan on letting the long journey here be for nothing.

“In 2018 I injured my back and in 2019 I had surgery,” she said recounting the last few years of work.

Malabuyo was determined to heal up for a shot at the 2020 games, but then the COVID-19 pandemic sidelined everything; the games, the sport, the world. During all of that, she had committed to going to UCLA on a gymnastics scholarship, but didn’t want to let her Olympic dream slip through her fingers; not now when she was at her prime and so close.

“I stayed back a year because I wanted to try for Olympics,” she said.

It paid off that night in St. Louis when she joined the other members of Team USA in the center of the arena, bound for glory in the big games.

Now Malabuyo says no matter what happens in Tokyo, she will get to live out that fantasy she’s had since she was just 5 years old and stepping into the gym for the first time. Then from there, she will finally head to UCLA to enter the next phase of her gymnastics career with their award winning program, and she’ll do so as an Olympian.

Win, lose, or just as a support, she says she’s ready to go live out that dream and make the most of it.

“Just to be able to wear that leotard and rep USA, and I’m just so thankful to be a part of the team,” she said.