Hard work is paying off for Paris Olympics-bound Aleah Finnegan as she prepares for the biggest competition of her life.
Finnegan contributed big time as Louisiana State University won its first Division 1 title in the 2024 US National Collegiate Athletic Association women’s gymnastics national championship on Saturday at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
With the 21-year-old Finnegan winning the individual crown in the floor exercises, the LSU Tigers advanced to the finals and finished with 198.2250 points, ahead of rivals from California, Utah and Florida.
Finnegan, the team’s final performer, stuck her landing (had a perfect landing) in the beam exercises. She also had an almost perfect score of 9.95, helping LSU rise from second to first place in the standings.
California went on to get second place with a total 197.8500 score.
“We all worked hard for this entire season. I looked forward to winning this. And we wanted it so bad,” said an emotional Finnegan, a third year student who will represent the Philippines in the Paris Olympics, in an NCAA broadcast interview.
During the championship final, Finnegan almost came out clean with a 9.9125 on floor exercise followed by a 9.8375 on vault.
In the last rotation, she anchored the Tigers on the balance beam with a 9.950, clinching LSU’s first national championship title in the program’s history.
While Finnegan was busy competing with LSU for the NCAA, another Filipino-American, LeVi Jung-Ruivivar managed to earn a Paris Olympics slot for the Philippines on that same day.
The 17-year-old Ruivivar grabbed a silver medal in the uneven bars finals of the 2024 World Cup series of Artistic Gymnastics’ fourth and final leg in Doha, Qatar.
A few days before the finals, Finnegan also made a perfect landing for the highest-scoring floor exercise moves in the semifinals, with an also almost perfect tally of 9.9625 to grab the individual floor title.
Her contribution, was among the things that saw LSU advancing to the national championship meet against Cal, Utah, and Florida.
All the big moves of the LSU Tigers happened in the fourth rotation and from there, California landed in second with a total 197.8500 score.
Utah took third with a total 197.8000 score, and Florida settled for fourth with a 197.4375 score.
LSU team skipper Haleigh Bryant finished tied for first in the all-around with a 39.7125 score
Senior Sierra Ballard started the fourth rotation with a career-high 9.95. After graduate student Savannah Schoenherr made an error, the Tigers still went on for a record-setting total event score of 49.7625, also for the highest ever on beam score in NCAA championship history.