Cecile Canqueteau-Landi and Ryan Roberts have been named co-head coaches at Georgia. The news comes just under a week after Courtney Kupets-Carter was relieved of her duties after another disappointing No. 18 finish for the Gym Dogs.
Canqueteau-Landi, along with her husband and coaching partner, Laurent Landi, is most notably Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles’ coach at World Champions Centre near Houston, while Roberts spend the last two seasons as assistant coach under Kupets-Carter with a stint at Alabama before that. Laurent will remain at WCC as head coach while their daughter finishes high school, then ultimately join Canqueteu-Landi in Athens.
“Cecile and Ryan are two of the most accomplished gymnastics coaches in the sport. The combination of their leadership and experiences will give us one the most dynamic coaching staffs in the country,” Brooks said. “Both coaches have developed and mentored the very best gymnasts in the world, and I know our current and future student-athletes will be excited to learn from two of the best coaches in the country.”
Apart from Biles, Canqueteau-Landi has coached numerous elite gymnasts, including UCLA’s Jordan Chiles, former UCLA gymnast and Olympic gold medalist Madison Kocian, former Florida gymnast Alyssa Baumann, LSU’s Amari Drayton, Arkansas commit Jocelyn Roberson, among others. As a gymnast, she competed for France at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and will be in Paris for the 2024 Games with Biles.
As a coach, Roberts helped Alabama to the 2021 SEC championship title and a No. 5 final ranking. He is a strong recruiter, bringing the No. 1 class in 2023 to Georgia. His teams signed top-five classes three times during his assistant coaching tenure. Prior to college coaching, Roberts coached at WOGA in Frisco, Texas, alongside Canqueteau-Landi, as well as a stint in Norway.
While Canqueteau-Landi won’t fully join the Georgia staff until after the Olympics in August, her and Roberts’ focus will turn to filling out the rest of their staff, as well as retaining the strong roster and classes of recruits Roberts worked hard to build under Kupets Carter’s time in Athens.
Georgia gymnastics is one of the original dynasties of the sport, still holding the most national titles with 10, including five in a row from 2005 to 2009 under legendary head coach Suzanne Yoculan Leeburn. The program has seen three head coaches since her retirement in 2009, including current LSU head coach Jay Clark, who is coming off winning the national title, Danna Durante, and Kupets Carter. However, it has not been able to find the success it once had since.
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Article by Elizabeth Grimsley
