This post was updated Feb. 20 at 12:06 a.m.

Mika Webster-Longin walked into coach Lisa Terry’s club gym in 2020 afraid to hang onto the uneven bars. Grappling with mental blocks and burnout, she nearly quit gymnastics entirely.

By the time she entered middle school, Webster-Longin – who speaks four languages – had lived in the United States, New Zealand, Belgium and England. After training around the globe, Webster-Longin started to imagine herself competing at the international level – specifically on the Olympic stage.

But long before Webster-Longin grew the confidence to compete for UCLA gymnastics amid a packed Pauley Pavilion, the freshman nearly quit the sport.

“​​I wanted to go to the Olympics. Every little gymnast dreams of it,” Webster-Longin said. “But then, usually, gymnastics gets pretty tough during your first few years of high school. And for me, that was like middle school as well. … I hit a point where I wasn’t sure I was going to continue with gymnastics or not.”

Mental blocks initially stood in the way of Webster-Longin’s Olympic dream. But instead of abandoning the sport she grew up loving, Webster-Longin made a change.

She joined East Bay Gymnastics in 2020 as a fearful and anxious gymnast. She was just trying to stay in the sport.

“​​She couldn’t even do anything on bars. She couldn’t even hang on the bar,” said Terry, who coached Webster-Longin at East Bay Gymnastics. “She was afraid to do anything.”

Devoting time to building a relationship and listening to Webster-Longin’s fears, Terry helped revive the youngster’s passion for the sport. And just two years after joining forces with Terry, Webster-Longin started competing as a Level 10 – the highest in club gymnastics and a requirement to compete in the NCAA Division I.

But that journey was far from easy.

A certain set of skills on each event are required to compete as a Level 10. Webster-Longin had all the necessary tools except for on bars. A soon-to-be familiar face stepped in at the right moment.

For what would become just the beginning of their collaboration, coach Janelle McDonald helped Webster-Longin piece together a Level 10-caliber bar routine. McDonald was, at the time, the bars and vault head coach at East Bay Gymnastics for Level 7 through 10 athletes. But the partnership foreshadowed a future neither McDonald nor Webster-Longin ever imagined.

“Her coaching on bars helped me so much in being able to find a bar routine to go Level 10,” Webster-Longin said. “Once we were able to, that really boosted my confidence in my bar skills and my gymnastics.”

Accolades quickly began to fill Webster-Longin’s once-sparse resume, including being named the 2023 East Bay Gymnastics Gymnast of the Year. She also won the all-around, bars and floor title at Level 10 nationals in 2023 and was crowned the Region 1 beam and floor champion that same year.

When it was time to start looking into colleges, Webster-Longin said she was hesitant to reach out to McDonald, who became UCLA’s head coach in 2023.

Webster-Longin feared rejection, but encouragement from Terry and her parents convinced her to contact her former coach.

“I was really excited when she reached out and showed interest in becoming a Bruin,” McDonald said. “Gymnastically, she’s just got so much beautiful lines and artistry and just the work ethic she puts in day in and day out. I was just excited to explore the opportunity of her coming to UCLA.”

Despite her apprehension to initially approach McDonald, Webster-Longin’s decision to commit to UCLA was anything but hesitant.

“​​When I came on my visit here, I was like, ‘Well, yeah. I’m at home here,’” Webster-Longin said.

But before she could begin her collegiate career, she had to take care of unfinished business: dreams she had as a kid.

To bring her Olympic aspiration to life, she expressed interest in joining the Belgian national team as a senior in high school.

After a long period of silence from the staff, Webster-Longin’s hopes of a future with the Belgian national team dwindled, and she started preparing for another Level 10 season.

But just months before she was scheduled to report to Westwood, a response came.

“Two, three months, we heard nothing,” Terry said. “Then all of a sudden, at the end of January, they’re like, ‘Can you be here in a week?’”

Webster-Longin was on a flight back to Belgium for the first time since moving away from the country in the fourth grade.

With Terry by her side, she competed in four competitions in Belgium before the national team’s selection committee officially added her to the team’s roster. Webster-Longin – who has extended paternal family living in Belgium – represented the country at the 2024 DtB Pokal Competition in Germany and the 2024 European Championships in Italy.

Competing with the Belgian national team forced Webster-Longin out of her comfort zone, immersing her in cultures and training styles that differed from what she was accustomed to in the U.S.

“The training is definitely different than in America because each country and every gym has their own training style,” Webster-Longin said. “It helped my gymnastics and my gymnastics journey to be able to train all over the world with a whole bunch of different people.”

Ultimately, Belgium did not qualify as a team, and Webster-Longin missed out on a ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympics. However, she said her elite experience rekindled her Olympic dream.

Being at UCLA allows Webster-Longin to train alongside a trio of Olympians every day – preserving her Olympic aspirations.

And since entering the world of collegiate gymnastics, she is now almost unrecognizable from the gymnast who walked into East Bay Gymnastics in 2020.

“Where we started from when I first started coaching her all those years ago to where she is now is tremendous growth,” McDonald said. “Something’s clicked for her to be able to be really intentional, really confident and really attack the gymnastics she’s doing.”

Webster-Longin has competed on floor, bars and vault for the Bruins in 2025. She holds a pair of career-high 9.900s on floor and bars and notched a career-high 9.850 on vault to win the event title against Penn State on Feb. 14.

Terry – who was a member of UCLA gymnastics from 1985 to 1991 – returned to Westwood for the annual alumni meet, where UCLA came back in the final rotation to upset then-No.5 Michigan State. Terry watched Webster-Longin compete with her alma mater and set a new career high on bars.

“Watching her do bars, I think I started to cry,” Terry said.