Jade Carey is the 2020 Olympic champion on floor exercise, a two-time World medalist (2017 silver, 2022 bronze), the 2018 Pan American Champion, and a four-time American national silver medalist (2017-2019, 2022). On vault, she is the 2022 World champion, a two-time World silver medalist (2017, 2019), the 2018 Pan American champion, and a two-time American national champion (2017, 2022). She was a member of the teams that won gold at the 2019 World Championships, the 2022 World Championships, and the 2018 Pan American Champion. With a total of eight Olympic and World Championship medals, Carey is the sixth most decorated U.S. female gymnast of all time.
At the Olympic Games, Carey performed the all-around during qualifications. She hit all four routines and qualified for the vault final in second place behind Simone Biles as well as the floor exercise final in third place behind Vanessa Ferrari and Biles.
Despite finishing ninth in the all-around, she initially did not qualify to the all-around final due to two-per-country limitations as Biles and Sunisa Lee placed higher. However, Biles later withdrew from the all-around final, and Carey, as the next-highest scoring American, took her place. During the all-around final Carey recorded the second highest vault (behind Rebeca Andrade) and floor exercise (behind Mai Murakami and tied with Angelina Melnikova) scores; however she fell off the balance beam and finished eighth overall.
In the vault final, Carey was a heavy medal favorite but finished in last place after balking her first vault due to missteps on the runway; she had intended to perform a Cheng vault but performed only a tucked Yurchenko, a vault with a difficulty score of just 3.3. She went on to successfully perform her second vault, an Amanar with a difficulty of 5.8, but was deducted two points for performing two vaults with the same entry, finishing with an average score of 12.416, more than two full points behind the seventh finisher.
The following day, Carey won the gold medal in the floor exercise final with a score of 14.366, outperforming her qualifications score of 14.100 and placing ahead of Italy's Vanessa Ferrari. She is the third consecutive American champion on the event, following Aly Raisman in 2012 and Simone Biles in 2016.
Upon returning home to Arizona, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego proclaimed August 17 as "Jade Carey Day". Days later it was announced that Carey would be joining Simone Biles' Gold Over America Tour. On August 30 Carey threw the ceremonial first pitch for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Carey verbally committed to compete in NCAA gymnastics at Oregon State University, starting in the 2018-19 school year. She officially signed with the Oregon State Beavers on November 9, 2017. She deferred enrollment until after the 2020 Olympics, starting in the 2020–21 school year. However, due to the postponement of the Olympics, Carey enrolled in classes for the 2020–21 school year but deferred competing for the Beavers until after the Olympics in 2021.
In early April 2022 Carey announced her decision to continue pursuing elite level gymnastics while competing NCAA gymnastics. At the NCAA championship Carey rotated with the Oklahoma Sooners in the first semi-final. She earned an all-around score of 39.650, the highest in the first semi-final but fourth highest overall. Her score of 9.950 on the uneven bars was the second highest behind Trinity Thomas.
Carey made her 2023 season debut at the Super 16 Invitational on January 6. The following week she competed at the Wasatch Classic where she earned two perfect 10s on vault and floor exercise. As a result she was named Pac-12 Gymnast of the Week. The following week, in a quad-meet against Denver, Brown, and Sacramento State, Carey earned an all-around score of 39.825 to help Oregon State win the meet. In a meet on March 4 at Arizona State University Carey earned her first perfect ten on balance beam. In doing so she became the thirteenth gymnast to complete a gym slam, the accomplishment of scoring a perfect 10.0 on each apparatus.
