“I literally have to be on the runway in 30 mins, and I locked myself out of my room.” Olivia Dunne’s lead-up to her debut runway walk earlier this month started with chaos. This made her nearly miss her flight to Miami, hours before she was supposed to show up on her first-ever ramp… But that wasn’t the only chaotic part. When she first got a call about this endeavor, something wilder happened…

On May 31, Olivia Dunne walked down the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit ramp and stole the show with a viral move. The retired LSU gymnast surprised everyone by breaking into a split on the ramp. Was she celebrating that she made it out of the locked room, or was it just a unique move? Well, she said, “It was just a joke,” a “spur-of-the-moment decision.” Interestingly, no one knew about it, not even the organizers, as Dunne gave them a surprise on the ramp. Well, it’s only justified after what their call did to her.

Yes, when Olivia Dunne first got a call about this opportunity with Sports Illustrated, the excitement left her nearly tumbling down. Speaking to Hurdat Sports on June 13, Olivia Dunne confessed, “Yeah, so actually when I did the shoot, I had no clue that I was shooting for a cover. It was just any other shoot, and I ended up getting a call while I was on family vacation, and I got told that I was on the cover. So it was very cool. I nearly fell out of my chair.” That’s because she didn’t just walk on the ramp but was also one of the four models chosen to be on the magazine’s cover.

Thus, from the minute she first heard about the cover shoot, Olivia Dunne was ecstatic about this opportunity. Speaking to Hurdat Sports, she admitted, “I was very excited because there’s so many icons that have been on the cover before me. So to be able to be one of them is truly such a blessing. It’s so cool…” And once she grabbed this chance, Livvy made it count. Overcoming all the chaotic barriers, she made it to the stage and pulled off a spectacle as the show opener.

But the same shoot that she nearly fell off the chair for was actually a battle to pull off in itself. Yes, Livvy embraced this opportunity with open arms, even if it caused her great pain and put her in unforeseen situations.

The pain behind Olivia Dunne’s SI cover shoot

Gymnastics fans know that Olivia Dunne had been battling with a fracture in her patella for a long time, which saw her miss some extremely crucial games for LSU during the past NCAA season. And that’s the same pain that still bothered her when she showed up for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit shoot. But Livvy being Livvy, she pulled through with grit!

Olivia Dunne had shared a behind-the-scenes Instagram reel through which her millions of followers got a rare peek into her Bermuda shoot for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit. But what they didn’t know was, “Fun fact, I was shooting on a fractured kneecap, so poses like this and the cover shot kind of hurt, but it was honestly so worth it.” Livvy had to kneel on the sand for poses, and that would have hurt her fractured patella. But it didn’t take away an ounce of the grace from her face, which is commendable.

Clearly, a lot was at stake for her SI shoot to happen, but Olivia Dunne never gave up! After all, this was a dream moment for her!