Preview: Olympians make their collegiate debuts

(Photo Credit: Team USA, in article by Chros McDougall, June 27,2021)

The NCAA Women’s Gymnastics season is right around the corner, and with former Olympians making their freshman debuts, I wanted to breakdown where they are now.

First, let’s start with All-Around Champion Sunisa Lee. The Minnesota native will compete in her first collegiate gymnastics meet apart of the Auburn University squad. The University of North Carolina will host the North Carolina Tri-Meet on January 7. Based on the lineup from the university’s website, Lee will not be competing in the all-around, which is not totally surprising to me. She is a freshman and collegiate gymnastics is different from elite and there are older teammates that should get the nod. Lee will compete on bars *surprise, surprise*. She can also be seen on beam. On both events, she is slated to go fourth. I expect Suni to shine as she does. After her time on Dancing with the Stars, she for sure has gained a lot of confidence. Also, since collegiate gymnastics is more performative, I think that will help her loosen up and showcase her talent along with her personality.

Moving on to half of the Biles-Chiles duo, Jordan Chiles will make her UCLA debut… soon. The UCLA Gymnastics team will not compete in the Collegiate Challenge in Anaheim on Jan. 8 because of COVID-19 protocols. The next meet on the schedule is against Minnesota on Jan. 17. That will be a great matchup because Minnesota was ranked 2nd in the preseason Big 10 polls. Since the Bruins will not be competing this weekend, I am unsure of the lineup and what Jordan would compete. If I had to guess, I think that Jordan would compete vault and hopefully floor. I feel like, especially on UCLA, floor is harder to get into the rotation since every team members’ routines are so iconic. However, she nailed her floor routine at the Meet the Bruins meet. Honestly, Jordan is so well-rounded, I wouldn’t be surprised with her competing anything.

Another Minnesota native and member of the 2020 silver-medal winning U.S. Olympic Team is Grace McCallum. She will be competing for the University of Utah and will make her debut on Jan. 7 at the Best of Utah NCAA Gymnastics Meet. Based on the university’s website, I am unsure what she will compete. I think she will compete vault. I think that Grace competed a Yurchenko full at the preview meet, but I’m sure she will compete a more difficult vault in the meet. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Grace competed bars because she is s-o-l-i-d on that event.

Along with UCLA, Oregon State will also not compete in the Collegiate Challenge. This affects the Olympic floor champion, Jade Carey. The Arizona native will make her debut next week against Boise State, San Jose State, and Washington. Carey will see Chiles on Jan. 23 which I’m sure we will see fun photos of them together. I believe that Carey is the first gold medal-winning Olympian in the Beaver program. With this, I would want to see her on floor, and I think we will for sure see her on vault. Vault and floor are her events, so that’s my prediction.

I LOVE college gymnastics, so I am so excited to get this season up and running. I’ll be sure to keep blogging my thoughts and predictions as the season goes on! Good luck to Suni, Jordan, Grace, and Jade!