The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris has captured the whole world’s attention this week and many incredible athletes have been making history.
Here in the USA, we’ve watched the women’s gymnastics team take home the gold in their “redemption tour,” and Simone Biles became the most decorated US Olympic gymnast in history.
And the team owes thanks to an unusual but crucial new member of their team: a therapy dog named Beacon!
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Beacon, a 4-year-old golden retriever, is USA Gymnastics’ first-ever therapy dog. This year, he played an important role in keeping the athletes calm and collected during the Olympic trials.
Beacon was adopted as a puppy in 2020 by his owner Tracey Callahan Molnar, after her previous dog Tulsa passed away, according to USA Today. When Molnar saw how much Beacon loved and gravitated towards people, she knew he could potentially follow in Tulsa’s footsteps as a therapy dog.
Molnar is also friends with Caroline Hunt, vice president of the rhythmic gymnastics program at USA Gymnastics — and as luck would have it, Hunt was considering adding a pet therapy program to USAG.
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The dog therapy program launched in February 2023 at a rhythmic gymnastics program in Indianapolis. Overcoming skepticism, the program proved to have mental health benefits for the competitors.
“They saw the benefit,” Molnar told USA Today. “They heard their daughters or their gymnasts talk about how much better they felt, how much calmer they felt going onto the competition floor and they credited being able to spend time with the therapy dogs in advance of the competition.”
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Beacon and the burgeoning therapy dog program received national attention after he comforted the gymnasts and coaches during the Olympic trials in June, the high-stakes event in which athletes competed for slots on Team USA.
Before and after the trials, competitors were able to visit Beacon and his fellow therapy dogs, who greeted them enthusiastically. Spending time with a therapy dog has been known to reduce stress and anxiety — as the owner put it, Beacon “absorbs the stress” of those who turn to him for comfort.
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“I watch the women and if they’re animated when they see him, I’ll walk toward them,” Molnar told ESPN. “Tonight, some called him over or came to him on their own… He picks up on the stress and will pull to that person immediately.”
She said the golden retriever was exhausted after a day of comforting the gymnasts, but the work was worth it: “I think we did important work. It was a rough night for some of the gymnasts, and I think Beacon helped celebrate the good stuff and be there and give support for the challenges.”
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The therapy dog program comes amidst a growing conversation about the mental health of Olympic athletes, especially gymnasts. Gymnastics can be as mentally stressful as it is physically challenging, and many of its hopefuls are young teenage girls. Many gymnasts have alleged emotional and verbal abuse from their coaches.
But in recent years, more athletes and coaches have been putting mental wellness at the forefront, most prominently Olympics legend Simone Biles, who pulled out of most of her events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after experiencing a mental block called the “twisties.”
“Over the last several years, our athletes have consistently told us that what they would like more of is mental health support, as well as nutritional support,” Jill Geer, USAG’s chief communications and marketing officer, told USA Today.
“They’ve turned things around entirely and now they are clearly thinking, ‘What does the athlete need?’ and it’s so nice,” three-time Olympian and coach Sam Mikulak told the New York Times.
“Sometimes, just being there is all someone needs to get through a tough time. And a dog brings that triple-fold.”
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Since the Olympic trials, Beacon has become the furry face of the changing attitudes in the sport, as photos and videos of him comforting gymnasts went viral. He’s not the only therapy dog in the program, but he’s emerged as the breakout star.
“There are several other dogs, but Beacon is 100% the star of the show. He is literally the Beacon of this program,” Geer said. “I joke that Beacon needs an agent because there are more requests for Beacon than just about any other athlete out there.”
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He’s been called the MVP of the team — that’s “Most Valuable Pup” — and Molnar said that one of the gymnasts suggested his title be CHO, “Chief Happiness Officer.”
“Just to listen to some of the gymnasts talk about it, it’s a healthy distraction. It gets their mind off of the intensity of the stress of their competition,” she told KXAN.
Despite his popularity, Beacon couldn’t travel to Paris with Team USA — while efforts were made, it proved to be logistically impossible. Molnar wrote on Instagram that she and Beacon would be “cheering our Olympians on from California.”