It’s fun to make preseason predictions about which athlete will be the next big thing, which team will be dangerous in the postseason, and who will take home the national championship title, but gymnastics is a fickle sport with a penchant for proving its fans wrong. If someone were to only look at Oklahoma and Faith Torrez’s championship wins that capped off the season with no additional context, they may think that 2026 went perfectly to plan, but a closer look reveals plenty of twists and turns along the way. Here are seven moments that were difficult to predict – for better or for worse – and had a significant impact on the way the cards fell in 2026.
Ciena Alipio evolving from beam specialist to three-event star
A mainstay of the UCLA beam lineup since her freshman year, Alipio used her senior season to make a late-career debut on two additional events. Training clips of her bars and floor work had previously surfaced, but it was unclear whether those would ever materialise into competition-ready routines. Alipio was determined to contribute on more events in her final season with the Bruins, and she achieved that goal, becoming a consistent member of the bars and floor lineups and reaching scores of 9.950 on both events. It was a pleasant surprise to anybody who drafted Alipio to their fantasy team as a beam specialist, and a memorable way to make the most of her final year while making significant contributions to her team.
Azaraya Ra-Akbar powering a dominant freshman campaign
Ra-Akbar was a promising recruit for Alabama, boasting elite experience competing for both the US and Canada and clean gymnastics that earned her a five-star recruit rating, but her status going into the 2026 season was relatively unknown. She had dealt with injuries and hadn’t been seen in competition for some time – the potential was there, but potential is not always fulfilled. Ra-Akbar, however, exceeded that potential in striking fashion, scoring a 9.975 on bars in her collegiate debut. She was a key player in the Crimson Tide’s vault, bars, and floor lineups throughout the season, became one of only three freshmen nationwide to score a perfect 10.000, and was named SEC Freshman of the Year. Ra-Akbar went from holding exciting yet uncertain promise to becoming a standout athlete in her class, ensuring that the rest of her NCAA career will be exciting to follow.
Stanford clinching its nationals spot on vault
The Cardinal came into the Baton Rouge regional seeded to advance, but the regional final didn’t end up being so straightforward: Stanford was shaky on beam for a sub-49 score, while Clemson excelled on vault and floor, putting the two teams in a tie for second heading into the final rotation. It was a nail-biting finish as Clemson nailed bar routine after bar routine while Stanford headed to vault, typically its weakest event. The result was decided when senior Taralyn Nguyen anchored the lineup with a stuck Yurchenko one-and-a-half, securing her team’s qualification to nationals by just 0.075 over Clemson. The surprise wasn’t this brilliant Stanford team making it to Fort Worth, but that it happened on vault, the team’s lowest-ranked event.
Utah breaking its 49-year nationals streak
Up until this year, there had never been an NCAA nationals without the Red Rocks. Utah took too long to settle into the season and decide on reliable lineups, and the new NQS calculation was unforgiving, forcing Utah to count the numerous low scores it posted in January. There were still bright moments, including a strong performance at the Big 12 championship that helped the Red Rocks claw their way to a No. 12 seed ahead of regionals, but the competition was stiff, and Utah just wasn’t able to rise to the occasion. The Corvallis regional was as brutal as anticipated, but it wasn’t UCLA or Alabama who pushed Utah out of contention, as many fans had predicted, but rather Minnesota. The Red Rocks’ legacy won’t soon be forgotten, despite the 2026 season not going to plan, and this disappointing result could serve as motivation to deliver standout performances in 2027.
Faith Torrez taking the all-around crown in her first four-event performance this season
During preseason, 2026 was shaping up to be Torrez’s year: she was set to be the leader of a talented but young Oklahoma squad, and she was ready to make a name for herself as one of the top all-arounders in the country. However, gymnastics is a famously unpredictable sport, and an ill-timed ankle injury limited Torrez to bars, beam, and the occasional vault appearance for the better part of the season. It seemed unfair that such a skilled athlete should close out her career without performing on floor, her strongest event, but Torrez shocked fans across the country when her name was listed as Oklahoma’s floor anchor in the NCAA semifinal. After not competing on floor all year, Torrez delivered a near-perfect routine with her trademark floaty double layout for a 9.950 on the event and a 39.7875 all-around total. It was good enough to edge out LSU’s Kailin Chio for the all-around title, making Torrez’s first four-event showing of the season a winning one.
Minnesota making a legendary postseason run; Brooklyn Rowray capturing the beam title
The No. 13 seed making it to Four on the Floor is a story that won’t soon be forgotten. Just making it out of the regional semifinal was an accomplishment for Minnesota, who, although favoured to advance, had to fend off a surging Iowa squad in order to secure a place in the famously challenging Corvallis regional final. The Golden Gophers took what was expected to be a tight race between UCLA, Alabama, and Utah for two tickets to Fort Worth and turned it into their own narrative, pulling off a second-place finish. The magic didn’t end there: Minnesota managed an upset over UCLA in the national semifinal, helped by senior Brooklyn Rowray’s 9.9625 on beam that was good enough for the individual title. It was Minnesota’s best-ever team finish and its first individual title since 1990. A lot of brackets were busted, and every pre-season prediction poll was proven wrong: it was the ultimate surprise of the postseason.
The shocking demise of Iowa State gymnastics
Iowa State’s trajectory in recent years hasn’t been without its problems, and a 39th-place finish in 2025 was disappointing, but nothing could have prepared fans for the disastrous performances and abrupt end that defined the Cyclones’ 2026 season. A poor showing in week one can usually be overlooked, but Iowa State was unable to turn things around, appearing to lack readiness for competition across multiple events. The breaking point was a disastrous 47.525 bars rotation at Utah that left Frederique Sgarbossa injured and fans extremely concerned. Iowa State cancelled its next meet, citing a lack of available athletes – something unheard of in NCAA gymnastics – and later announced the cancellation of the rest of its season. The termination of the program was announced shortly thereafter, with Iowa State Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard citing “unresolved conflicts” within the program that were not present in the university’s other sports. Iowa State later announced the decision to add a Division I women’s wrestling program. The mismanagement of the gymnastics program and poor handling of the situation were devastating for the athletes and a letdown for collegiate gymnastics as a whole.
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Article by Sophie Poirier
