FilAm teen gymnast Levi Jung Ruivivar is hopeful of qualifying for the Paris Olympics through a World Cup event in Qatar next week. Steve Angeles reports. #TFCNews Like and follow TFC News Facebook: https://facebook.com/TFCNewsNow Twitter: https://twitter.com/TFCNewsNow Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tfcnewsnow/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@tfcnewsnow Website: https://mytfc.com/news News website: https://news.abs-cbn.com/tfcnews Subscribe to the ABS-CBN News channel! - http://bit.ly/TheABSCBNNews Watch full episodes on iWantTFC for FREE here: http://iwanttfc.com Visit our website at http://news.abs-cbn.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abscbnNEWS Twitter: https://twitter.com/abscbnnews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abscbnnews #TFC #TheFilipinoChannel #TFCNewsCalifornia #ABSCBNNews #TVPatrol #LeviJungRuivivar #Olympics #WorldCup

Video Transcript / Subtitles:( AI generated. About AI subtitles » )

* AI ("Artificial Intelligence") subtitles on Tagalog.com are generated using "Whisper" by OpenAI (the same company that created ChatGPT and DallE2). Results and accuracy may vary.
* The subtitles do include errors occasionally and should only be used as a tool to help with your listening practice.
* You can request this website to create a transcript for a video if one doesn't already exist by clicking the "Request AI Subtitles" button below a video. Transcribing usually takes 30-40% of the length of a video to complete if there are no other videos in the queue. For example, a 21 minute video will take 7-8 minutes to transcribe.
* Running a super fast cloud GPU server to do these transcriptions does cost money. If you have the desire and financial ability, consider becoming a patron to support these video transcriptions, and the other tools and apps built by Tagalog.com

Fresh from three competitions representing the Philippines, 17-year-old Los Angeles-born Olympic hopeful Levi Jung-Rubivar is hoping her performance on the bars at next week's World Cup in Doha, Qatar can raise the bar when it comes to Philippine gymnastics.

I'm excited about the rest of the season. I'm really hopeful that I'll get to qualify to the Olympics.

If I don't get that spot in Doha, there's also another opportunity for me to qualify during Asian Championships.

When she first picked up the sport at two years old and began excelling, the Rubivar family knew that representing the Philippines was a strong possibility.

After training in the U.S. system her whole life, and after signing to Stanford University for this fall, the Filipina team joined the Philippine team last year.

I just always had a really strong affinity for the Philippines.

And I guess it was just something like I kind of had my heart set on.

We always talked about it as a family and I just felt like it felt right in my heart and I just felt that I wanted to be surrounded by the Filipino community.

The Rubivar family is no stranger to the spotlight. Levi's grandfather is none other than the late Tony Rubivar, founding member of the iconic band the Society of Seven.

Her father Anthony is a Hollywood actor.

Starring on the early 2000s hit Third Watch, recently appearing in the Disney Plus adaptation of Turner and Hooch, he's now working on NCIS Hawaii.

It was definitely something that we were always, it was always in the back of our minds.

And you know, I don't know, it's, I guess it was just more accessible, like Levi's Filipino roots, you know, through me, through the Society of Seven, my dad, and the whole community.

It was just a big, you know, it was always just a big community that, you know, Levi was raised in.

And I think that maybe tipped the scales a little bit.

The Rubivar family is looking beyond Levi's Olympic dreams.

The sport can be costly, so along with other families, they set up the non-profit Himnastica to help support Filipino-American gymnasts.

Our hope was to try to help, you know, subsidize some of those costs for the Phil-Am athletes and help them in that way.

And at the same time, also, you know, start to look forward to like really kind of,

kind of getting behind the fact that, you know, look, the Philippines hasn't sent a women's gymnastics team to the Olympics.

And so, you know, our hope is that we change that.

Rubivar isn't the only Filipino-American looking for a spot in the Olympics.

Current UCLA junior Emma Malabio is also in the running to represent the Philippines at the Paris Games this summer.

2020 Olympian Carlos Yulo and Phil-Am Alea Finnegan-Cruz have already qualified for the Paris Games.

It would mean so much to make the Olympics and just like win some medals for the Philippines and get to like raise the Filipino flag.

It would be amazing. And it also would mean a lot to inspire future generations of Filipino athletes in gymnastics

because that is like one of the goals of Himnastica as well is we're trying to really help build the program

and do anything that we can to like get as many people involved as possible.

Rubivar, who's currently training in Texas, will be heading for Doha later this week

where she will practice leading to the bars competition on April 17th and the floor on April 18th.

The finals are set for Friday, April 19th.

Steve Angeles, ABS-CBN News.

We'll be right back.