One year after Paris 2024, Filipina Olympians Levi Jung-Ruivivar, Aleah Finnegan, and Sam Catantan look back on the summer that turned their lifelong dreams into history.
A year has passed, but for three Filipina athletes, Paris still feels close—like the sparkle of chalk dust in a beam of light, the echo of cheers across the floor, the sting of a final touch in a fencing bout.
For Levi Jung-Ruivivar, Aleah Finnegan, and Sam Catantan, the 2024 Paris Olympics was more than a competition. It was a dream they dared to live.
And now, a year later, they remember.
“To be honest, it still feels like a dream ??,” Levi wrote in an Instagram post—just like how everything about Paris felt. Quiet. Sacred. Like something you try to hold on to even as it slips into memory.
At just 18, Levi Jung-Ruivivar became one of the youngest to ever represent the Philippines in artistic gymnastics.
She thanked her family, her coaches, her teammates, and her friends—the people who carried her to that Olympic floor. “You will never know how much it means to me now and forever,” she wrote.
Aleah Finnegan, meanwhile, had been dreaming of this since she was a little girl. In Paris, that little girl got her wish. A total score of 50.498 placed her 33rd overall in the world—but for Aleah, it was never about placement.
“Forever an Olympian,” she wrote. “Thank you Jesus for this crazy journey I get to call my life.”
Together with Emma Malabuyo, Aleah and Levi ended the country’s 60-year Olympic drought for female artistic gymnasts—a landmark moment that meant so much more than just appearances. It was representation, recognition, and a renewed future for Philippine gymnastics.
And then there was Sam Catantan—whose Olympic journey began not with triumph, but with pain. A torn ACL in 2023 nearly erased her Olympic dream before it began.
But she fought back, returning to fencing in February, barely months before the Games.
“Exactly a year ago today!! Paris, you were a dream—merci,” she wrote.
Even now, Sam continues the journey. Just months ago, she posted her first pistol squat attempt since her ACL tear. One year after Paris, she’s still fighting, still dreaming.
Paris, to many, was just a place. But for Levi, Aleah, and Sam, it was the moment the impossible became real.
Merci, Paris. For reminding us that even the briefest moments can last forever.