LSU’s Aleah Finnegan is Ready to Shine at the SEC Championships

Aleah Finnegan has arguably been the nation’s top gymnast in all of college gymnastics. The star senior will have a huge impact on just how far LSU goes in their quest to repeat as National Champions.

Ahead of the SEC Championships in Birmingham, Aleah talked about how getting a 9.985 on floor exercise gave her confidence going into this meet. She said, “Yeah, absolutely. We had a conversation about it regarding some tweaks and changes that needed to be made inside the floor routine in order to be able to hit for my team. It’s definitely something that I feel a lot better about going into these next few meets.”

Finnegan also spoke about how impressed she has been with freshman Kailin Chio. She said, “She competes exactly how she practices. It’s been just so cool to see it play out the way that it [has] because she works so hard in the gym and you can see it out on the competition floor…She knows exactly what she needs and for her to be able to compete how she does and train how she does, it’s really inspiring for me.”

Lastly, Finnegan addressed the team’s level of confidence after winning a share of the regular season SEC title. She said, “It’s great, it’s something that we’ve worked really hard for but now it’s kind of onto the next. And we’re focusing on SEC's and we’re just putting all of our training and all of our mindset into this competition. We’ve learned a lot from this season. It was kind of a slow start then we built it up and I think each week we’re getting better and better. We’re exactly where we want to be.”

LSU is set to hit the mats in the second session of the 2025 SEC Gymnastics Championships. The Tigers will be on SEC Network beginning at 7:00 pm CT.