LSU Gymnastics prepares to defend the crown in 2025

2024 was a historic year for the LSU Gymnastics program. The team that had been dubbed the best to never win it finally got over the hump, and thanks to an incredible performance in the final round of the championship, they will see their first ever national championship banner dropped from the rafters on Friday.

On Monday, we got to speak with fifth-year senior, Sierra Ballard, about the upcoming season and she was asked about the emotions that will come with the banner being dropped.

"It's something that we've been looking forward to our entire lives," said Ballard. "It's been the goal since I've stepped on campus to win a national championship. To see it finally come into fruition and every single meet that I'm in and every other game that I'm in the PMAC for the rest of my life I get to look up and see that...I think it's going to be really cool to celebrate and commemorate that, but as soon as the lights come on and Callin' Baton Rouge plays, it's meet day."

Fans and the media love to use the term "defending national champions." Heck, I pretty much did in the opening sentence of this article, but that's not a term LSU Head Coach Jay Clark and the rest of the team are using. They took their time to celebrate their accomplishment during their break, but since they returned to offseason training, the switch has been flipped to 2025.

"As soon as the offseason training began, that's when my mindset switched," said Ballard. "I feel like, with the incoming freshman and the seniors that left us, it's a new team and a new team dynamic. The core of our culture stays the same, but the team members that contribute to that culture changes."

The Tigers theme for 2025 is defend the crown, which seems a bit ironic considering what we just talked about. When discussing the theme, Jay Clark told us that it's not about defending the championship, it's about protecting the culture that they've developed over the past few season.

"Our theme this year is protect the crown, and most people think that has to do with defending national champions, but when we talked about what our theme was, it was more about protecting the culture that we've developed."

Unfortunately for the Tigers, they will not be at full strength this Friday when begin their quest for back-to-back championships this Friday. Their All-World gymnast, Haleigh Bryant, will miss at least the first meet with an elbow injury. She originally tweaked it in the regional round of the tournament before it flared up again during their Gymnastics 101 event on December 16th. Clark has labeled Bryant as week-to-week and said they will be cautious with her before she comes back.

In other injury news, Konnor McClain, one of the best freshmen in gymnastics last season, will likely perform on bars and beam this week after suffering a torn achilles just six months ago. She's still slowly working her way back on vault and floor, but should be in the rotation on those two events.

Clark is yet to release a lineup to his team, but when asked about potential all-arounders, he mentioned senior Aleah Finnegan, sophomore Amari Drayton and two true freshmen in Kailin Chio and Lexi Zeiss. Despite having so many talented upperclassmen, this team is loaded with young talent who will be on the floor this year.

This should be another exciting season for LSU Gymnastics, who come into the year with sky-high expectations. They have some big meets this year, including hosting the Oklahoma Sooners on Valentines Day, so make sure you're tuning in throughout the season for some of the best gymnastics college has to offer.

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