The 2024 Olympics have been buzzing with both entertainment and talent as the world’s top athletes compete. While many showcased their immense skills, a few captured the audience’s hearts with their flair for entertainment. One standout who combined both was Taisiia Onofriichuk, a 16-year-old gymnast from Ukraine. Her recent performance in rhythmic gymnastics left everyone in awe, according to Reuters, per Reuters.
Image Source: Taisiia Onofriichuk of Team Ukraine competes during the Rhythmic Gymnastics Porte de La Chapelle Arena on August 08, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Naomi Baker/Getty Images)
Onofriichuk delivered an electrifying performance with her hula hoop, adding a surprising hip-hop twist. She dazzled the court, gracefully performing to Michael Jackson's iconic "Thriller." The audience, expecting something unique, was still stunned by her blend of elegance and hip-hop cool. Coming from a war-torn country, team leader Iryna Blokhina had doubts about the 16-year-old even making it to Paris. "We didn't know if we would even get here because during the last attack before we left, we thought we wouldn't survive," she said.
Image Source: Michael Jackson reached the peak of his solo career with 1982's "Thriller," the best-selling album of all time and recipient of eight Grammy awards. (Photo Jean-Marc Giboux/Liaison)
Onofriichuk was able to safely make it to the games and deliver an electrifying performance. The young woman fell in love with the sport after watching a tournament and has been passionate about it ever since. "This moment means a lot more to me than people can imagine. I felt calm inside...I'm incredibly proud to be representing Ukraine right now, especially during the war and the conditions that we're training in, under bombs and daily attacks,” Onofriichuk recalled. Displaying her skills one step after another, Onofriichuk’s routine was a dazzling one that left people jaw-dropped.
Image Source: Taisiia Onofriichuk of Team Ukraine competes during the Rhythmic Gymnastics at the Porte de La Chapelle Arena on August 9, 2024, in Paris, France. (Photo by Tom Weller/VOIGT/GettyImages)
Right from start to finish, each twist, turn and jump was seamlessly coordinated in sync with the 80s hit. @UATV_en shared an impressive clip of the gymnast as she flawlessly took everyone by surprise with her routine. Applause, gasps, cheers, roars and expressions of shock and astonishment filled the space as Onofriichuk rendered one groovy move after another. Throughout her performance, the 16-year-old incorporated iconic steps from the music video, including Michael Jackson’s signature moonwalk, among others. Onofriichuk managing to groove to the beat and executing spectacular steps while her hula hoop was mid-air was another striking feature of her performance.
The crowd was spellbound by the creativity, energy, and courage in the out-of-the-world performance. @UROCKlive1 wrote, “I can't stop watching this! She's incredible.” @Bugaenkonastya added, “This is our pride and smart girl. We congratulate her; this experience is more important than any medal.” @SBarrBirseboys exclaimed, “An amazing performance with an amazing tune from Michael Jackson. One of the many great tributes to Michael Jackson during the Olympics.” @DonRust_DotaFan added, “Pretty amazing. Loved how she had incorporated some MJ dance moves into the routine.” @james_violette remarked, “How is this humanly possible? What an incredible heartbeating performance.”
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Pictured: A healthy practice?
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.