Gymnastics to open regular season in Chapel Hill

Auburn gymnastics opens its season this week, ranked No. 14 in the nation and ready to compete for a national championship. 

The Tigers will travel to Chapel Hill, N.C., on Friday to take on North Carolina and Bowling Green. 

It has been 11 months since the Tigers last hit the mat, as last year’s postseason was canceled due to COVID. Now, armed with upperclassman talent and arguably the best gymnast on the planet, Auburn gym is ready to go out and compete once again.  

“We are excited to get started,” said head coach Jeff Graba. “First meet, what do we expect? I just want to see them fight a little bit, I want to see them get out there and work at it. We are taking it a month at a time, a week at a time and a meet at a time.” 

It is no secret that Auburn added one of the single most tantalizing names in gymnastics, when it added Suni Lee to its roster last year. 

Coming off three Olympic medals in 2021, including the gold for Team USA in the All-Around category, Lee is a premier name in all of gymnastics and has been expected to compete as such. 

To Graba and to the 18-year-old Lee, that Olympic level of success will come with time and will not be on display immediately for Auburn. 

“She has had a lot to learn in her short time here,” Graba said. “Is she still the best athlete in the world? Yes.”

“The first couple meets I will probably be laying low,” Lee said.

Lee has certainly not taken a conventional approach to her first year in college by any means. As many of her teammates were practicing daily, Lee was practicing different routines. Lee was competing on Dancing With The Stars, training for the tango over her bar routine, dancing the samba over working on her floor routine. 

Lee kept up her tradition of success, making it to the semi-finals of the show, but admits she fell behind in her practice regiment for gymnastics. 

“The past couple of months have been really hard,” Lee said. “I have not had a lot of time to train. Every time I went in to train, it was like I was starting over again, because I had taken so many breaks.”

Lee and Graba both noted that competing for Auburn will be the freshman’s first time competing with a long-term team and that her Olympic-level routines have had to be scaled back and dulled down in order to compete at the college level. 

As for someone that has gone the more conventional college gymnastics route, junior Cassie Stevens is looking to continue on her 2021 success.

Stevens was All-SEC in 2021, posting career highs in four of her five disciplines in Auburn’s last season. 

Stevens is one of 10 upperclassman on Auburn’s roster, and one of Auburn’s best overall gymnasts, but noted with the addition of gymnasts like Lee, that no role is safe on the team. 

"You gotta keep proving yourself week in and week out,” Stevens said. 

As for how the team is shaping out, Stevens could not help but smile. With a solid core of girls, and the addition of Lee, Stevens sees big things ahead for Auburn. 

“Our team goal is to be there on the final night of the national championship. We are really preparing for that,” Stevens said. 

Lee and Graba both echoed the same sentiment. 

“This year we feel like that the final night of competition is a legitimate goal of ours,” Graba said.

“I really want to win an SEC Championship and win an SEC Championship as a team,” Lee said.  “We really want those rings."

Auburn will be hoping to fare far better than the 1-7 showing the team posted last year. Graba, Lee and Stevens all think that that is possible. The potential is there, and on Friday, it will finally be seen in action.

"Everyone can see the potential this team has. This team is really great, I just can't wait for everyone to see what we have been working on in the gym,” Lee said.