Praewa Philaphandeth, Laos rhythmic gymnast, World Championships Frankfurt, Germany; to field a second Lao rhythmic gymnast nationwide

Praewa Philaphandeth put Laos on the rhythmic gymnastics map. Now she wants company.

Ahead of the World Championships in Frankfurt, the Paris 2024 Olympian talked to Olympics.com about the pressure of being first, an Olympic dream that began in front of a television, and the sport she is trying to grow at home.

The first rhythmic gymnast Laos ever sent to the Olympic Games is, still, leading the way for her nation.

Praewa Philaphandeth has spent her whole career as a first, and carried a small nation’s entire rhythmic gymnastics programme on her shoulders while she did it.

This week, she is back at the World Championships, in Frankfurt from 12 to 16 August, and she will arrive the way she always does: as the one and only entry under the Lao flag.

“It feels great, but it also comes with some pressure – that you are the first of the Lao Gymnastics Federation,” she told Olympics.com . “It’s a bit tough. I’m holding the national name as the first person.”

When she began, there was no one ahead of her to follow.

“When we started the Lao Gymnastics Federation, there were no other Lao gymnasts,” she said. “Just only me.”

The sport is still making a name for itself in Laos, she says.

“This sport in Laos is not quite popular, and the government is not supporting us, because it’s hard to win the competition or get the medals,” explained Philaphandeth.

Her road to Paris 2024 was helped in part by the IOC’s Olympic Solidarity programme, which backs athletes from smaller nations on their way to the Games. She went as a universality entry and placed 24th in qualification, competing on a lower leg that had been troubling her for two years.

The placing mattered less than the walk to the floor.

“I have goosebumps, now, also,” she said, describing the moment two years on. “It’s the best part of a gymnast’s life. It’s very wonderful to step onto that carpet.”

It was, in a way, a full-circle moment.

She had been a child watching the London 2012 Olympic Games on television when the sport first caught her – the ribbon, the ball, gymnasts who “jumped high” and looked, to her, beautiful.

“After I finish my ribbon routine, the last one, I felt very proud,” she said of Paris.

An LA28 dream: “I want my score to be better than the last Olympics”

Philaphandeth is of Lao, Thai and Japanese heritage and grew up in Bangkok, but she trains a long way from the flag she competes under.

Her move to Japan came at a competition, she says: after she finished at the Asian Championships, her coach, Rika Yamamoto, called her over.

“She told me that if you are interested, I can help you to come to study in [Kokushikan], and also can train,” Philaphandeth recalled.

It was a full scholarship, but she did not say yes right away.

“At that time I was also paying attention to my competitions,” she said.

Eventually, she accepted the scholarship, and it gave her the opportunity to practise the sport at a higher level, and something off the mat too.

“My first goal,” she said, “is to talk Japanese with my grandmother.”

After Frankfurt comes the Asian Games (19 September-4 October), in Nagoya – held, this time, in the country that has become her training base.

And she has begun, slowly, to build the thing she never had.

Philaphandeth says the Lao federation is working to bring through a second gymnast, a young athlete of Lao and Moroccan heritage based in France.

“Now, we’re working with a gymnast, half Lao and Moroccan,” she said. “She’s living in France and training with the France national team.”

It would mean she is no longer competing alone.

Los Angeles 2028 sits in the distance, and she is clear-eyed about it.

“I want my score to be better than the last Olympics,” she said. She knows the universality route that carried her to Paris may next carry someone else: “The Olympics will also give a chance for other countries.”

For now, the measure she trusts is not the scoreboard.

“I’m not only aiming to achieve the medals or win the competition,” she said. “I aim to get experience and develop myself. Getting better and better.”

Rhythmic Gymnastics | World Championships | Frankfurt | Germany