When it comes to famous gymnastics family lineages, having a mother and daughter who both competed in the Olympics as gymnasts is one of the rarest events to occur. However, there is one feat that is even rarer. That being, an Olympic gymnast giving birth to a daughter who went on to become an Olympian in a sport other than gymnastics.

While there are five examples of mother-daughter Olympic gymnasts, there is only one example of a mother-daughter Olympic combination between an Olympic gymnast and a family member competing in any of the other Olympic sports. That example occurred when 1936 Olympic gold medalist Anita Barwirth had a daughter by the name of Cristina Hardekopf who returned to the Olympics as a diver for the 1960 Games.

Well, it has happened again.

Cecile Landi who competed under the name Cecile Canqueteau in the 1990s and participated in the 1996 Olympics has a daughter by the name of Juliette Landi who was just selected for the Olympics in women’s diving. Perhaps it is irony that something that has happened on only two occasions in any other sport occurred with diving on both of those occasions. Perhaps it is an insight into the strong overlap these two sports share. Proving athletes with a gymnastics background can leave the sport and go on to become great divers. This famously happened with Phoebe Mills who won a medal in gymnastics at the 1988 Olympics and later placed 13th at the 1993 U.S. Diving National Championships.

Cecile Landi is the rare example of a gymnast who became more famous after she stopped competing. She rose to become one of the most widely recognized names amongst gymnastics fans due to her success as a coach. Cecile was noted for her association with 2016 Olympian Madison Kocian during her coaching stint at WOGA. But it was when in 2017 that Cecile and her husband Laurent Landi were personally selected by Simone Biles to become her new coach and head the rising WCC program that her coaching career reached unprecedented heights.

Usually, it is when a coach successfully leads a gymnast to an Olympic gold medal for the first time that he or she has reached the pinnacle of success. For Cecile and Laurent, it was when the biggest gymnast of the century undergoes a mid-career coaching change and personally chooses you to become her new coach. And if that wasn’t enough, the combined power of Simone, Cecile, and Laurent has shaken up the American club system.

Despite its relatively new status, WCC has become the top club in the American system virtually overnight under the guidance of Cecile and Laurent. At the 2024 U.S. Classic it had more participants in the senior field than any other club. But even that wasn’t enough, Cecile’s coaching career would rise once more. Last month it was announced that following the Olympics she would pivot to NCAA coaching. Taking over the Georgia program which has won ten National Championships in its history, has enormous resources, and has long been looking for the coach who can finally rekindle its former glory as the winningest program in NCAA history.

Cecile has become something of a celebrity-like figure amongst the gymnastics fanbase and growing up that reflected on Juliette Landi. She made the occasional appearance on the social media channels of both Simone Biles and Nastia Liukin. Juliette was also present for many of the local ceremonial events as WOGA and WCC celebrated the gymnasts they sent to the Olympics. As a gymnast Juliette competed first for WOGA reaching Level 7 in Artistic Gymnastics. She then switched disciplines competing in Trampoline & Tumbling while representing WCC. She eventually left gymnastics entirely making the switch to diving.

But when it was noticed that Juliette was having success as an elite-level diver, gymnastics social media channels began tracking her diving career with the topic generating strong interest from the fanbase even though it was a different sport. Gymnastics fans have been tracking her career milestones for at least the past two years. All because fans had so much admiration and respect for the parents, they found themselves rooting for the daughter as well.

Juliette Landi was the feel-good story that was compelling when it first began taking shape, and then had one of the most rewarding endings. The two years gymnastics fans spent admiring her for branching out into a different sport and hoping she would find success, ended in Juliette becoming an Olympian. Juliette Landi had so many similarities to the case of Cristina Hardekopf that this evolved into a scenario where Juliette had the opportunity to replicate an unusual gymnastics record linked all the way back to the 1936 Olympics, complete it under identical circumstances, and it is doubtful the stars would ever align like this again.

And Juliette did it. That is an extra bit of joy on top of what is already a rewarding storyline.

Cecile and Juliette Landi share a diving connection with the previous example of Anita Barwirth and Cristina Hardekopf in 1936 and 1960. But this ultra-rare occurrence not only features similarities in the same Olympic sport, both examples feature a family that crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Cecile and Laurent are famed French gymnasts who came to the United States to coach, in the process raising Juliette in their adoptive new country. Anita Barwirth was a German Olympic gymnast who moved to Argentina, giving birth to Cristina Hardekopf and raising her in the country she now called home.

Disclaimer: Argentina is widely associated for being the country of choice for Nazi war criminals/party fanatics fleeing Germany in the aftermath of World War II. The Barwirth/Hardekopf family has no association with this trend. The family first moved to Argentina in 1938, prior to the outbreak of World War II.

Who knows what the future may hold for Juliette Landi, but gymnasts tend to perform well when they switch sports. One of the most famous Olympic figure skaters of the 1990s got her start in gymnastics, the iconic Surya Bonaly. Juliette and Surya are both French, both live in the United States, and both competed in gymnastics T&T as their previous sport.

Juliette Landi may be an Olympic diver, but she will always be connected to the sport of gymnastics. As a child she grew up in the direct presence of Nastia Liukin and Simone Biles. She trained inside the halls of WOGA and WCC while making trips with her parents to Karolyi Ranch. These unique experiences have made her an example of what it is like growing up while being a member of gymnastics royalty. Over the years Madison Kocian has made multiple tribute post on social media describing how much the Landi family meant to her, and every time she specifically included Juliette.

But the symbolism is this. Back in 2016 when Madison Kocian went to the Olympics, Juliette Landi was the little kid from the same gym celebrating Madison as she departed and left. Now Juliette is the one going to the Olympics. Simone Biles was a big part of Juliette’s life when she was growing up. Now they will be going to the Olympics together.

There is a lot of irony in the way Cristina Hardekopf and Juliette Landi are connected by a 64 year old record that has only happened twice while sharing an absurd amount of similarities in the process of achieving it. But the biggest irony of all is that there are so many “future stars” pictures of Simone Biles with a young elementary school aged gymnast who later grew up to become a famous gymnast herself. Sometimes they grow up to become famous Olympic divers as well.