At College Gym News, we love diving into the data about how gymnasts and teams perform week after week. However, this offseason we’re turning the tables to dive into some of our own data on one of our favorite topics: Leotard Rankings!
To do this analysis, we looked back at leotard ranking articles from 2021 to 2024 and collected all the scores on the leos that debuted each week. We excluded any special leotard ranking articles, such as elite or level 10 leotard rankings, to focus only on college leotards. This resulted in 602 different leotards that we ranked over the past four years.
So what constitutes a good leotard score? In college gymnastics, we’re used to seeing great routines score a 9.8 or 9.9. However, despite leotard rankings using the same 10.0 scale, our deductions add up to much more than an unpointed toe or a bent knee. The leotards that we’ve rated have received an average score of 6.9, with the majority of the leotards falling in the 6.0 to 8.0 range. Below you can see the distribution of overall scores that leotards have received.
While most scores fall in that 6.0 to 8.0 range, we have a few leotards that our staff have just loved. 14 leotards have scored a 9.0 or higher with just three breaking the 9.5 mark. Our three favorite leotards have been No. 1 the Oregon State Retro Benny Leo scoring a 9.7, No. 2 the Stanford Angry Tree Leo scoring a 9.6, and No. 3 the Utah State Spectrum Magic Leo scoring a 9.575. If you can’t tell, we love a well-executed theme leo!
There have also been nine leotards to get a perfect 10 from at least one judge, with three getting a perfect 10 from two different judges. One was the top-rated Oregon State Retro Benny Leo, but the other two proved to be a bit more controversial among our judges to end up with a lower overall score despite the two perfect 10s. Washington’s leo shown below ended up with a 9.325 overall, while California’s Pride Leo received an 8.875.
Leotard rankings are very subjective as personal tastes vary, but some leotards end up being more controversial than others. The most controversial leotard that we rated, as defined by the difference between the top rater’s score and the bottom rater’s score, was the Utah Red Spider Leo. Some of our staff loved it while others really hated it. The gymnasts at Utah seem to agree with our lower scores though, as the Red Rocks have not worn this leotard since its debut in 2021. Other controversial leotards include the Oregon State and Ohio State leotards shown below. All three of these leotards had spreads of over six points between our raters.
Looking at the data by team, Michigan State jumps out as the team with our favorite leos overall. With nine different leos debuted, remaining at the top was no easy task, but the Spartans managed to keep a 8.54 average rating. Also among our favorites were Temple and Talladega with an 8.2 and 8.1 average rating, respectively. It’s a shame we won’t get to see more leos from Talladega because the three they debuted last season were all stunning!
At the other end of the spectrum, N.C. State, Northern Illinois, Cornell, Georgia, and Greenville have some of our least favorite new leos. All five teams average below a 6.0. With new coaches at the helm for Georgia this year, we’re excited to see if they step up their leotard game and produce some new leotards that our staff loves.
Finally, we examined the individual scores from the CGN staff to see how nice or harsh our team is when rating. To calculate this, we took the difference between the individual rater’s score and the overall score for the leotard. A positive score means the rater liked the leo more than our other raters, while a negative score means the rater liked the leo less than the others.
Our nicest rater overall was Mountain West editor, Aaron Doyle! If you’re a team debuting a new leotard this season, you should hope to see Aaron’s name on the list when we rate your leotard. The harshest rater on the other hand was Rebecca Scally, who is commonly known for her Questions, Comments, Concerns articles. Maybe one of her concerns this season should be the leotards that teams are debuting!
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Article By Claire Harmon
