After a dramatic offseason that noticed teaching and convention modifications, transfers and several other school gymnasts dominating on the Paris Olympics, NCAA gymnastics formally returns Friday. And, identical to each season earlier than, 2025 brings numerous storylines to observe and quite a lot of questions.
How will Olympians Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles fare? Will Cecile Canqueteau-Landi — recognized greatest as Simone Biles’ longtime coach — have the ability to flip issues round at Georgia? Can LSU repeat? Will Oklahoma discover redemption? And what about all of those convention modifications?
The season opens Friday night time with intriguing meets together with Iowa State at No. 2 LSU (7:30 p.m. ET on SEC Network) and Utah State at No. 5 Utah (9 p.m. ET on ESPN+). Several different top-ranked groups compete over the weekend at varied invitational meets: No. 4 California, No. 10 UCLA and No. 19 Oregon State headline a contest in Oceanside, California, on Saturday, and No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 17 Auburn are a part of an invitational in Nashville, Tennessee, on the identical day. No. 12 Denver and No. 13 Michigan conclude the weekend with a must-see twin meet (5 p.m. on ESPN2) on Sunday.
But after all, that is simply the primary weekend. The season will get extra fascinating — and the stakes even increased — because it continues, culminating with the crowning of a brand new champion April 19 in Fort Worth, Texas. Here are the gymnasts, groups and the whole lot you could know coming into the brand new 12 months.
Golden Girls
After serving to the American squad win Olympic crew gold in Paris over the summer season, Carey (Oregon State) and Chiles (UCLA) are again for his or her respective groups and seeking to acquire much more crew and particular person {hardware}.
Carey, who additionally earned the Olympic bronze medal on vault, remained with the Beavers in the course of the lead-up to Paris and is now again in Corvallis for her senior 12 months. She carried out with the “Gold Over America” tour in the course of the fall, so the 24-year-old had minimal downtime after the Olympics. But she was the NCAA all-around and ground runner-up final season, even whereas juggling elite and school, and will probably be a menace all this season.
Chiles, who was controversially stripped of her bronze medal on ground in Paris and remains embroiled in a legal battle to get it back, centered solely on elite final 12 months. But she has returned to Westwood for her junior season following her stint on the GOAT tour as effectively. The 23-year-old is a two-time NCAA champion after successful the 2023 titles on ground and bars, and can look to deliver the Bruins again to their former glory as seven-time nationwide champions, after a number of subpar years by UCLA requirements.
Leanne Wong, a four-time medalist at the world championships and alternate for the U.S. crew in Paris, can be again at Florida for her senior season. She was co-champion on the uneven bars on the 2024 NCAA championships and helped lead the Gators, ranked No. 3 within the preseason ballot, to a runner-up end in 2022 and 2023.
Joscelyn Roberson, Team USA’s different alternate and member of the 2023 world championship crew, will probably be making her debut at Arkansas this season. She will grow to be the primary nationwide crew member to compete for the eighth-ranked Razorbacks.
Other Olympians competing this season embody Aleah Finnegan (LSU), Emma Malabuyo (UCLA) and Levi Jung-Ruivivar (Stanford), who all represented the Philippines, in addition to Canada’s Cassie Lee (Iowa), Ava Stewart (Minnesota) and Aurelie Tran (Iowa) and Hungary’s Csenge Bacskay (Georgia).
Return to glory in Athens?
It has been a difficult stretch for Georgia gymnastics. The college’s 10 nationwide championships are probably the most in NCAA gymnastics historical past, however the crew hasn’t received the title since 2009 and completed in final place on the SEC championships for the third 12 months in a row in March.
After the 2024 NCAA championships, Georgia dismissed head coach Courtney Kupets Carter — who had led the crew to 4 straight nationwide championships throughout her time as a student-athlete on the college — after seven seasons within the position. Less than per week later, the school hired Canqueteau-Landi and Ryan Roberts as co-head coaches.
Canqueteau-Landi had been Biles’ private coach since 2017 on the World Champions Centre alongside her husband, Laurent Landi, and the information — simply months earlier than the Paris Olympics through which Biles was slated to compete — despatched shockwaves by means of the gymnastics world. Canqueteau-Landi remained at World Champions Centre by means of the Olympics after which arrived in Athens in August.
Working with Roberts, who had been an assistant at Georgia for the previous two seasons, the pair introduced in big-name transfers reminiscent of Bacskay and former nationwide crew member Kara Eaker, and could have stars like 2024 SEC Freshman of the Year Lily Smith, Ady Wahl and Naya Howard nonetheless on the roster. Roberts was excited concerning the crew’s future when chatting with ESPN in November.
“One of our large objectives is to hit 24-for-24 each meet,” Roberts stated. “If we do this, we’re in all probability going to do fairly effectively and the outcomes will come. During the previous few years we have been good in apply however we simply have not been capable of execute precisely how we have to within the meets, in order that execution is one thing we’re centered on. We’re simply conserving it easy; we will not management the scores, so all we are able to do is management our execution and simply attempting to get higher each single day.”
Georgia is ranked No. 14 within the preseason coaches’ ballot and begins competitors Jan. 12 in a quad meet in opposition to Denver, Missouri and Long Island.
LSU appears to be like to run it again
Entering final season, LSU had been the NCAA title runner-up on 4 events however had by no means been capable of declare the highest spot on the rostrum.
But 2024 modified the whole lot.
Led all through the season by eventual NCAA all-around champion Haleigh Bryant, the Tigers rallied again throughout their closing rotation within the crew championship on beam with the very best collective rating (49.7625) within the historical past of the occasion to win the title. Bryant later advised reporters it was one thing she had wished since she dedicated to the college — and the prospect to repeat was so engaging she introduced she could be coming again for a fifth 12 months.
And this season, which kicks off with a banner ceremony forward of the meet Friday, appears to be like prefer it may very well be extra of the identical. In addition to Bryant, the Tigers’ roster is totally stacked with expertise. Finnegan, who clinched the NCAA victory on beam in April and received the person ground title, returns following her Olympic debut for her senior season.
There’s additionally sophomore Konnor McClain, who received the SEC beam title in her freshman season and is now coming off an Achilles’ tear which derailed her Olympic goals. Fellow reigning SEC champions KJ Johnson (ground) and Ashley Cowan (bars) additionally return, as do high-scoring contributors Sierra Ballard, Amari Drayton and Olivia Dunne.
Not to say, nationwide crew members Kaliya Lincoln, Zoe Miller and Lexi Zeiss are all freshmen on the squad, and may make a right away influence.
The college introduced it had damaged its earlier report with 8,680 season tickets offered forward of this season. With that raucous residence crowd and a roster depth most coaches and groups may solely dream about, LSU actually has the whole lot it must repeat this season.
Oklahoma’s redemption 12 months
Of course, no crew may need it extra — and be extra poised to take action — than the top-ranked Oklahoma Sooners.
The two-time defending nationwide champions had been the heavy favorites to win the 2024 nationwide title after spending all the 2024 season ranked No. 1. But the crew had a disastrously uncharacteristic begin in its first rotation on vault within the semifinal, when three gymnasts had main touchdown errors. The Sooners had been in final place coming into their second occasion and had been by no means capable of absolutely shut the deficit, lacking out in competing within the nationwide championship meet for the primary time since 2012.
The Sooners have rather a lot to show this 12 months and can seemingly be utilizing final 12 months’s heartache as motivation all season lengthy. Led by reigning particular person NCAA champions Audrey Davis (bars and beam) and Faith Torrez (beam), and 2024 Big 12 all-around champion Jordan Bowers, Oklahoma will probably be a right away drive in its first 12 months within the SEC and among the many favorites — if not the favourite — for the NCAA title come April.
Even vault, the equipment that precipitated the crew’s early exit in Texas, needs to be a extremely useful weapon for the Sooners. There are 9 gymnasts on the roster who can compete a vault with a ten.0 begin worth. With this a lot expertise and a large chip on their shoulders, the Sooners will probably be enjoyable to observe this 12 months as they search for a seventh nationwide title.
Old faces, new locations
In addition to Oklahoma making its SEC debut, and the next change to the convention’s championship format from a one-day event to a two-day event, a number of groups will probably be in new conferences this 12 months. Because the Pac-12 largely disbanded following the 2023-2024 tutorial 12 months, it marked the top of normal conferences between storied rivals, and now among the persistently top-ranked groups within the nation are beginning new chapters.
While Oregon State and Washington State stay within the two-school convention, UCLA and Washington are actually within the Big Ten, California and Stanford are within the ACC (sure, the 2 West Coast colleges are formally within the Atlantic Coast Conference) and Arizona, Arizona State and Utah have joined the Big 12. It is equal components complicated, geographically maddening and disappointing for followers of the earlier rivalries, and it’ll undoubtedly be fascinating to see how every crew fares in its new convention.
If it isn’t bizarre sufficient that reigning Pac-12 champion Utah will now be within the Big 12 and reigning Big 12 champion Oklahoma will now be within the SEC, add this one to the record: The present Pac-12 all-around champion and Gymnast of the Year is now within the SEC. Selena Harris, who additionally received the convention title on vault and tied for first on bars, was dismissed from UCLA following the season for unspecified causes and is now at Florida.
The junior needs to be a key member of the star-studded — if not injury-plagued — Gators in 2025, alongside Wong, Anya Pilgrim, Kayla DiCello, Riley McCusker and sisters Skye and Sloane Blakely. McCusker missed the 2024 season following an ankle surgical procedure and DiCello and Skye Blakeley each ruptured their Achilles’ tendons in June whereas attempting to make the U.S. Olympic crew. DiCello had one other surgical procedure on her different foot in December, and it is unclear how a lot both gymnast will have the ability to contribute this season.
