“I’ve made my personality gymnastics, and I love it. But I am a Marvel nerd!” Dulcy Caylor Channels Confidence Heading Into New Orleans

Dulcy Caylor loves the Marvel franchise. Captain America: Civil War, and Bucky Barnes to be exact.

“I’ve made my personality gymnastics, and I love it,” she said. “But I am a Marvel nerd. I own that. And I could probably answer some trivia for you! I love to bake anything, just even exercise outside of the gym, any fun little sports like pickleball or anything. I just love to do a little bit of everything.”

This week, Caylor’s focus will definitely be on a lot of gymnastics. She’s competing at the 2025 Xfinity U.S. Gymnastics Championships, and is looking to build her resume with her sights set on making the senior women’s National Team again, and qualifying for the World Team Selection Camp taking place this fall ahead of the 2025 World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia.

On the horizon for Caylor beyond New Orleans are some big-time goals. She’s signed with the Florida Gators as part of the extraordinary Class of 2026 and cannot wait to compete in NCAA gymnastics. And she’s also got a special trip to Los Angeles in 2028 on her mind, she said.

Before that, there’s plenty of gymnastics to do and goals to go after.

Caylor hit the ground running in 2025. She followed up on the success she had in 2024, where she made it all the way to the Olympic Trials. So far in 2025, she’s been to Italy for the Jesolo Trophy where she helped Team USA to silver, and to Panama for the Pan American Championships where they captured team gold, and where Caylor caught everyone’s attention early with a Yurchenko double stuck cold.

One of Caylor’s goals is to continue to build her name this season, and compete confidently every time she goes out on the floor. In addition to that vault, watch out especially for her double layout and super-cool second tumbling pass on floor (whip full to double tuck to punch front), and her form on every event. She’s been focused on upgrading start values all year, she told me, while keeping her focus on making sure she doesn’t lose points on execution.

“I still want to add start value this year. I am definitely not done. I want to keep going with it,” she said. “A big skill that I would like to compete is the Nabieva on bars. I want to get a second vault. I would like to get more anything on floor and beam, whether that’s Arabian on beam or different connections. Even connections on bars, too. Just things like that are big goals for me.”

So far this year, Caylor has not only seen continued success, she said she’s really enjoying the creative part of her training and adding new elements to her routines. Following the 2024 Olympics, World Champions Centre head coaches Cecile and Laurent Landi left WCC, and former head coaches of the Romanian National Team Patrick Kiens and Daymon Jones were hired. Caylor noted the adjustment period was pretty smooth.

“It was big news in the gymnastics world!” she said of the change. “I’m always going to be grateful to Cécile and Laurent for everything they’ve done for me. And of course, it was a transition, but overall, yes, it has been working out. It’s been a fun change. There’s been, like you said, more different skills I’m learning, some creativity that I didn’t think I was going to do. Working with Patrick and Damon has been a good switch for me, and I think it’s been fun to change it up a little.”

When it comes to NCAA gymnastics, Caylor is still thinking through her timetable and carefully weighing whether she’d like to try and balance Elite and NCAA as so many women are doing successfully now. She’s so excited to become a Gator and grateful for all of the opportunities that allow women to stay in the sport longer. It’s totally changed the game across the board.

“There’s so many options now, which is great to have, and great to have an open mind with [doing NCAA and Elite],” she said, noting that, “This next quad is something I really, really want to go for. 2028 is my main goal. I know there was a joke we made that if I went to the Olympics in 2032, I would still be younger than what Simone (Biles) was this past year. It’s great to know that it could be an opportunity, but hard to know what will happen then! I’ll see what happens, but I would love to stay in [gymnastics] as long as I could.”

With big goals set for her Elite career, Caylor is excited for the big stage in New Orleans this week and hopes to channel a little bit of that superhero energy she loves as well. “I’m incredibly excited and I cannot wait to really show the best that I can be, and be as confident as I can at Championships.”

Here’s more of our conversation with Dulcy Caylor!

Take me through your competition at Classic! And, looking forward to Championships, what are your goals right now? 

Of course, there are things I wanted to fix at Classics, but overall, I’m happy with my bar routine, my vault, and just adding in a new start value. That’s what I came in this season wanting to do, is add [my start values]. Looking ahead to Championships, I really just want to be as clean and as confident as I can and keep the start value, while still making sure the execution is high.

Your middle tumbling pass on floor, I feel like it’s a little bit of throwback. Those of us who grew up watching in the ’90s, it takes me back to that era! Can you talk about the process of putting that pass in the routine. You worked to get that punch front around at Classic! 

Originally, we wanted to do a connection pass, something to add any tenth or two to my floor routine. The coaches have been great about having and trying more individual skills—things that maybe I would be better at, or creative, just something new. I tried it and I really loved it! It’s really cool and I really want to go for it. Yes, at Classic, I had to use the work I’ve done with squats to try and make it through on that one! It crossed my mind [not to throw the punch front], but I knew I had no reason not to go for it! I might as well have gone for it, and I tried my best. Going into Championships, I’m definitely looking to hit that both days!

Going back to last year, you had the phenomenal opportunity to compete at Olympic Trials, and train and compete alongside the most talented group of U.S. women ever. Tell me about your experience at Trials and being on the floor with those women. What do you think you learned most about yourself through that experience?

Getting the goal of competing at Trials was incredible and an experience that is like no other. It was just, I still can’t believe it! Overall, last season, I wanted to become more confident in competitions. I learned to have much more fun with it! I think that started to carry over and I just love competing. It’s something that last season, getting to that point, training with those girls, training with Simone—I looked up to her so much. It was always just a good thing to see that level of gymnastics, and always try to push and be as close as I could. She always helped me. It was just an incredible opportunity!

I feel like the group of women that you’re training with at WCC now is also so strong. Watching you all doing well at Classic, talk about the team spirit that you have going on.

Being able to have that many Elites still—even after an Olympic quad is over, when sometimes people go and they’ve gotten their goal or their time—it’s just great to still have this many girls. Being able to be close enough with them just to cheer them on, it makes it even better having a big group there. It feels more like a practice, not really like something that’s, ‘Oh, I’m by myself.’ It’s really great.

It’s an incredible time in the sport… You have so many additional opportunities to compete and stay longer in the sport, without anyone saying, ‘Hey, you’re 17 years-old, you need to be done with gymnastics now.’

Absolutely. [Before] I think it was hard to try and stop, and feel like you only get one shot, really. And now, it’s nice to know that there’s multiple opportunities!

A big part of your fall was committing to Florida. Tell us about your recruiting trips and why you ultimately chose Florida for NCAA gymnastics!

Florida had just the perfect amount of everything for me. When it comes to gymnastics, academics, coaches, everything, I just knew it. I know everyone always says that you’ll get a feeling, and I didn’t believe it. I was like, ‘Oh, okay, I’ll make my best choice. I’ll see what happens.’ But, I knew it. When I was on the visit with Florida, it was a feeling. So it’s true that you do get that! All of the colleges were so sweet, had incredible opportunities, and it was great to talk to all of them. Florida just felt like home.

Did you find yourself watching Friday Night Heights and cheering everybody on?

Yes, absolutely. I even told Jenny (Florida head coach Jenny Rowland) when I was there that it’s really fun to be able to cheer on a college and be like, ‘I’m going there next!’ I always leaned towards someone when I watched, and usually it was Florida, but it’s good to be able to back it up now and be like, ‘I get to be there’ and I root for them. It is a lot of fun to watch those competitions!

Following Championships, what are some of the goals that you’ve set for yourself, as far as the Elite side goes?

At Championships, I just want to be as clean and as confident as I can both days. My big goal, of course, is to stay on the National Team and just try for that Worlds Selection Camp, and really try and give myself a shot for Worlds.

Talk about the support and the atmosphere when you travel to camp, the team spirit. Do you feel it’s a positive experience?

I think it’s definitely grown so much from the past. Going now to Tennessee, the people are always trying to help, always have something fun to do. I think all of us look forward to the “stick” stickers! They’ve made it seem more fun, more of a group thing instead of constantly being in competition, because I think we all know we all are competitive. We know what we’re doing there, and we still have our goals, but we still will cheer for each other in every way.

Who are some of the athletes that you looked up to, growing up in the sport?

My favorite gymnast growing up was Shawn Johnson! She is just such a powerhouse, and I loved the look of her gymnastics. I loved the confidence. I loved everything about it, and she was just so fun to watch. I love seeing her now with her family, I love to keep up with her. She seems like such a sweet person.

Finally, if you’re talking to 8 or 9-year-old Dulcy, what would you say?

Oh, my goodness! I guess I would say, ‘don’t stop dreaming’ and not to sell myself short. There’s so much more I can do, and there’s no need to stress out, rush anything. Just enjoy it, have fun, and keep pushing myself.

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