University gymnastics in the United States and a growing trend: Olympic champions join the experience of competing in show mode

The American University Artistic Gymnastics League (NCAA) starts tomorrow Friday at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas with the participation of the last all-around Olympic champion, Sunisa Lee, and the last Olympic champion on the ground, Jade Carey. No less important will be the presence of Olympic and world medalists Jordan Chiles and Grace McCallum. But what is this competition that is increasingly accumulating more fans and viral routines about?

Currently, the NCAA involves around 3500 gymnasts, who compete once a week from the first Friday of January to April of each year. Women’s artistic gymnastics began to be a university sport in the United States with an annual national tournament starting in 1982. In addition to training, the gymnasts of the league study a degree for 4 or 5 years and, in general, have a full scholarship. In recent years, the number of Olympic-level competitors has grown strongly and in 2022 there was a milestone in the history of gymnastics: an all-around Olympic champion participated in the NCAA. The impact was great, since just five months after consecrating herself in Tokyo 2020, Sunisa Lee put on the Auburn University mesh and led the team that reached fourth place in the 2022 season.

Lee announced in November that in 2023 she would be part of the NCAA again, although she clarified that she will then pause to focus on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games: “This will be my last season competing at Auburn University. I am so excited to share that I will then return to international gymnastics. I have my sights set on Paris 2024 and I know what I have to do to get there,” said Lee, 19, in a video posted on her social networks.

Jade Carey (Oregon) and Jordan Chiles (UCLA) are other gymnasts who will add Olympic prestige to the 2023 NCAA season. Together they helped the United States win a historic sixth consecutive world team title in November in Liverpool and were, with Grace McCallum (Utah), runners-up in Tokyo 2020 the night Simone Biles decided to leave the competition to safeguard her mental health.

The attractive experience of competing in a much less stressful and more euphoric environment means that the trend also includes non-American gymnasts interested in the NCAA. Such are the cases of the Spanish Marina González Lara (Iowa), who participated in Tokyo 2020, and of the British Amelie Morgan (Utah), medalist in the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games.

The format of this national artistic gymnastics league involves 82 teams from all over the country, which compete weekly in a regular phase. Then, the 36 best in the ranking go to the Regionals and the best 4 to the National. And although the team tournament is the most attractive and popular tournament, medals are also contested at the all-around level and on devices.

And if there is one thing that brings a lot to the show, it is that the NCAA arbitrates routines with a different scoring code than the current one that governs international competitions: the university league awards a “10″ as maximum possible, so that fans can enjoy “perfect routines” at various times. The score is not similar to what can be seen or could be seen at the Olympic Games, so it’s a mistake to fall into comparisons, but what is a fact is that it brings great moments to the show.

The reigning NCAA champions, the University of Oklahoma, are the candidates to win their second consecutive title in 2023. If successful, it would be his fifth national university crown since 2016. In the opening week of the competition, they will face off against the University of Michigan (2021 champion), the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), and Auburn University, led by the last Olympic champion, Sunisa Lee.