Aberdeen O’Driscoll is no stranger to the pressure of a big meet. As a member of the Belgian National Team, O’Driscoll competed at the 2023 European Championships where her performances on vault and floor helped Belgium qualify for a team spot at the home World Championships in Antwerp later that same year where she was selected as an alternate.
O’Driscoll had originally planned to compete through the 2024 elite season, but a stress fracture in her back prevented her from competing in the FIG Apparatus World Cup series. While she still has more to give in the elite world, she is ready to explore new places her gymnastics can take her, like Athens, Georgia. And so this past fall, O’Driscoll undertook her most recent challenge of beginning her NCAA career in the United States under a newly revitalized Georgia program.
Aberdeen’s gymnastics journey began in her village of Léglise before moving to the high-level training centers in Mons and Ghent. One of her first coaches at her club in Wardin, Pauline Hardy, described O’Driscoll’s power, mental toughness, work ethic, and constant motivation as her strongest qualities as an athlete.
Born to an American father and a Belgian mother, O’Driscoll was raised entirely in Belgium but traveled to the United States to visit her paternal family in Boston. With that American connection, she learned more about colleges in the United States and decided to reach out to programs in hopes of competing in NCAA gymnastics.
“I just reached out to colleges and sent emails saying that I was trying to find a good fit, then had some calls with different schools,” O’Driscoll said. Even without stepping foot onto Georgia’s campus, O’Driscoll was drawn to Georgia to pursue her academic and athletic endeavors. “I had heard about Georgia so I knew it was a great university,” O’Driscoll said. “I didn’t go on a visit before signing just because I was confident, so I signed and then visited campus two months later.”
O’Driscoll isn’t the only fresh face in Athens. Also new are six other freshmen, three transfers, and new co-head coach Cécile Canqueteau-Landi, who joins Ryan Roberts at the helm. This is a highly anticipated new era of Georgia gymnastics. O’Driscoll’s enthusiasm to be part of this new team under Canqueteau-Landi’s leadership was clear. “She [Canqueteau-Landi] is the best, we feel it in the gym,” O’Driscoll said. “We work really hard and we come to the gym every day knowing that we all have the same goal. We know what we want so we work for it every single day in the gym.”
Roberts was enthusiastic about O’Driscoll’s hard work on bars and beam for this upcoming season and suggested the possibility of her breaking into the Gymdogs’ lineups on both of those events. He said a back flare-up at the beginning of the year might have impacted some of her training on the pounding events like vault and floor, but was excited about her progress on bars and beam. “Beam is her strongest. She’s been working good on bars and has been improving there over the last 23 weeks.”
While balancing NCAA gymnastics is tough enough, O’Driscoll made it clear she would still like to retain her spot on the Belgian National Team. She joins the ranks of gymnasts like Aleah Finnegan, Emma Malabuyo, and Luisa Blanco who balanced their NCAA careers with a demanding international elite gymnastics schedule. Roberts mentioned that O’Driscoll’s work ethic is one of the driving factors in her ability to accomplish both goals this year. “We said from the beginning with all our athletes, whether in academics or athletics, if it’s something they want to go for like elite gymnastics, we want to support that,” Roberts said.
Roberts was blunt about the challenges of balancing college and elite, mentioning the additional training hours needed on top of a full-time student athlete’s schedule. However, he is willing to embark on the journey to support his athlete’s goals if they can show they are willing to put in the work. “Aberdeen comes in some morning and works extra and has requested additional training time,” Roberts said. “It just goes to show that if they’re willing to put in the work, then we 100% want to support them.”
When O’Driscoll talked about her personal goals for this upcoming year she said that school and gymnastics were the big goals. “I just want to be in the lineups as much as possible, do well in school, and pursue elite gymnastics.” She added the need to “combine my new life at school, the meets, and then later on elite.” It’s not easy for anyone to juggle all of these things, especially as an international student, but with work ethic and perseverance, the opportunities for Aberdeen O’Driscoll are endless.
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Article by Daniel Rothwell
