This is the season to tune in and watch the Quakers fly to victory.
Increasing popularity
As gymnastics has gained popularity with the average person through its coverage at the 2024 Paris Olympics and celebrity-status athletes like Simone Biles, people are paying more attention to college gymnastics.
All of Biles’ teammates from the 2024 Olympic team are involved with NCAA gymnastics in some way. Sunisa Lee formerly competed for Auburn, while Jordan Chiles currently competes for UCLA, Jade Carey for Oregon State, alternate Leanne Wong for Florida, and alternate Joscelyn Roberson for Arkansas, are actively competing. Even Hezly Rivera, while still a junior in high school, has committed to LSU. Clearly, NCAA gymnastics is not a lesser choice; collegiate training is a great way to maintain technique and competition skills between Olympic years and other elite-level opportunities.
A force to be reckoned with
Some people may be surprised to learn that Penn has a gymnastics team, much less just how successful the team is. There is often rhetoric about how Penn may not be very sports-forward, but within the Ivy League and much of the Northeast, this gymnastics team breaks that stereotype.
The Red and Blue have won the Gymnastics East Conference for the past three years in a row, and in that time no other Penn team has been able to maintain a comparable record. But looking at the current team compared to their former rosters, it is easy to see how they’ve become so dominant.
The team, celebrating its 50th anniversary, has completely transformed since the COVID-19 pandemic, largely due to the appointment of Kirsten Becker as its coach. If you want to root for a team on campus that is reliably succeeding and continuously outdoing their records, one thing is clear: This is the season to become a fan of Penn gymnastics.
The ins and outs of gymnastics
In case you’ve forgotten since July of 2024, here’s a brief rundown of how gymnastics works, with some specifications for NCAA. There are four events — vault, bars, beam, and floor — that come together to make a team score. In college, six athletes compete in each event, and the top five scores count.
Routines are generally scored out of 10, though some may capped slightly lower depending on difficulty, making team totals on each event out of a maximum 50 points. The final score is out of 200 points with all four event totals combined. Athletes competing in all four events—like Simone Biles — also enter in the all-around competition, which is scored out of 40 points.
Since 2022, the Penn gymnastics record books have been revised frequently. Below is the number of individual records set since the return from the pandemic, broken down by event. The denominator is the number of scores in the record book and the numerator is how many were set after the return to competition post-COVID-19.
All-around: 16/29 (55%)
Vault: 36/48 (75%)
Bars: 16/28 (57%)
Beam: 17/33 (52%)
Floor: 6/20 (30%)
In regards to the all-around records, it is worth noting that current team superstar junior Skyelar Kerico holds 11 out of 29 (38%) of those records, including the record for both the highest score and second-place score.
Team score records are kept in various categories: overall, home, away, season opener, Ivy Classic, and GEC Championships. All current team score records have been set in the past three years, as well as all of the top-10 team vault scores. Further, eight of the 10 bars scores and six out of 10 beam and floor team records have been set since 2022.
Pre-COVID-19, the team average was 192.936 for the 2020 season. Upon returning to the competition floor in 2022, the average surged to 194.616, a drastic jump for a sport where wins are determined by hundredths or thousandths of a point. The average has only improved since then; 2024’s average was 194.948. Much of the credit goes to coach and Penn gymnastics alumna Kirsten Becker. Her win average is 0.507, with last season’s being 0.606, the best record since 2012 — the last time they won both the Ivy Classic and GEC Championships before 2022.
Looking ahead
This season, our gymnasts have stated that their next goal, in addition to an Ivy Classic and GEC four-peat, is to qualify for NCAA Regionals. The NCAA teams, regardless of division, with the top-36 highest National Qualifying Scores qualify to Regionals, which continue along a bracket format until National Finals. The NQS is made up of the team’s top-six scores, three of which have to be from away meets. The top is score dropped and the remaining five scores are averaged.
While it may seem like a convoluted system, it is designed to eliminate home-field advantage and fluke outliers. Last year, the team’s NQS was 195.450, less than a point away from 36th place. As of Feb. 17, Penn is currently No. 41 with an NQS of 194.745 and is only 0.370 points away from 36th place. Being only halfway through the season and almost three-tenths ahead of last year’s NQS should instill confidence in Quaker nation. With six meets left in the season and an upward trend in performance, it is very possible that Penn can pull off the first Regionals qualification for not only the school, but the whole Ivy League.
On the road to victory?
So what do all these numbers mean? The Penn gymnastics team has been consistently improving since 2022 and is expected to once again dominate Ivy Classic and GEC Championships. With the team on the rise, there has never been a better time to become a fan of the team. Their anticipated success shouldn’t be the only thing enticing enough for you — imagine the feeling of watching people do double backflips, fly 10 feet in the air, and flip on a four-inch-wide beam right in front of you.
Luckily for Quaker nation, you have the opportunity to watch the team clinch the title on March 22 when championships are held at the Palestra. It’s on you to “Pack the Pal” and support what is arguably the best team on campus: the 2025 Penn gymnastics team.
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