The Oklahoma Sooners may not have an Olympic medalist in his team, but in gymnastics, trapped landings never go out of style.
The Sooners won their seventh national title in the NCAA Gymnastics Championship in Fort Worth, Texas, Saturday. The UCLA Bruins, led by the Olympic gold medalist Jordan Chiles, extravaged.
Despite an indomitable performance of chiles and their teammates, the Bruins claimed second place, ending four tenths of point behind Oklahoma. Missouri and Utah completed the first four.
Oklahoma began its night in the equilibrium beam, where the nerves tend to drag even for the most experienced teams. If they were nervous, it was not shown: each score that the sooners counted on the beam was 9,900 or more.
UCLA reflected Oklahoma’s early impulse, dating lights in his best event, the exercise of the floor. Chiles anchored the Bruins with an almost perfect 9,975, tieding Oklahoma after the first rotation.
Five Olympics competed in the Saturday’s final, including Chiles and his Olympic teammate 2021 Grace McCallum (Utah), Brooklyn Mours (UCLA) team of the Canada team and the Olympic bronze medalist Amelie Morgan of Great Britain (Utah).
In the second and third rotation, Oklahoma accumulated a healthy buffer over the rest of the field. A hungry rotation of UCLA beam led to a tight race, but Oklahoma assured the victory with a final stellar rotation in the unequal bars.
“A really fairy tale ending,” said Jordan Bowers from Oklahoma in the ABC transmission. “Obviously, last year it was a difficult loss, but you have to grow and we have learned a lot this season … This little girl when I was 13 years old here and I dreamed of moments like these.”
Bowers also claimed the individual title in Thursday’s competition.
The greatest shock of the night came in the second rotation, when McCallum fell from the equilibrium ray. The little characteristic error hindered the search for UTES to win its first national championship since 1995.
The defending champion and sown No. 1 LSU failed to advance in Thursday’s semifinal, following UCLA and Utah. Missouri obtained his first place in the final in the history of the program after a Fifth Year Helen Hu Hu clutch routine, who also won the National Individual Title in that event. The first year star of LSU, Kailin Chio, claimed the title of the vault and Chiles won the unequal bars, while his teammate Brooklyn Mours took home the title of the exercise of the floor.
Chiles became the first Bruin to win two national titles of irregular bars. His Olympic teammate Jade Carey (state of Oregon) was close to tie Bowers for the general title, but an imperfect landing in the vault kept it in fourth place.
This year’s field offered one of the closest clashes in recent years, with Lsu losing the Final Four for two tenths of point, an landing attached to the progress.
